Rhino's Ramblings - The Pied Piper

By Robert Thomas - Opinion/Commentary

This past week I have received my fair share of DMs (direct messages), emails and even phone calls from people in Canada very worried about my health here in Ukraine.

For most of them they have been worried about me here because of the media reports they have been hearing about Ukraine and how if you were to watch the news back home in Canada you would be driven by the perception that everyone is running around in fear and that this country is very soon to be turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

What I have been seeing in my travels around Ukraine is a country where life goes on.

If you watch the television news here the “crisis” (in many people’s minds here just everyday life) with Russia is anywhere from the lead story to the fifth story or not even mentioned at all.

So I went out on a cloudy, windy and a little bit chillier Saturday afternoon and headed down to the main tourist walking street - Deribasovskaya Street - to see what was going on.

As I entered from Yekaterina Street (yes it is named after the Russian monarch Katherine the Great) I ran into a boy about 10 years of age out busking the corner with his recorder and because of the cuteness and his sly business tactics was raking in some decent change.

A child out busking with his recorder on Deribasovskaya Street - MJ Independent photo

It did not take me a long time to see how this small boy had perfected his busking to almost an art form and how he seemingly play the same tune over and over again and more than a few people dropped in a donation to a well worn box.

You could tell how despite his young age he was a bit of a pro at it.

He would sit there and wait until people approached his corner and then he would start playing his tune and put on his act. And it worked.

The majority of people, despite tougher than usual economic times here, walking by slipped money into his box for collecting his booty. Even I slipped the young lad the equivalent of 50 cents into what he told me was his fund to buy a notebook.

As I sat watching this child it made me think of an analogy of him and Ukraine.

Both young in their actual years - one as a child and one as an independent country - and both very skilled at getting donors to help fund their endeavours.

I thought about what had been said over the past week about Ukraine and how Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom were moving out a large portion of their embassy staff and families right out of the country.

Britain or the United Kingdom had gone so far as given Ukraine some highly sophisticated shoulder mounted tank killers but next week are pulling out the soldiers they sent to train Ukrainian troops to use them.

The United States has gone so far as actually having Embassy staff personally telephoning American citizens and urging them to “get out now while you can.”

Here is something that is new in all of this and that I discovered at the present time the Department of National Defence is NOT doing interviews here in Ukraine at the present time. I asked for one awhile back but could not make it it Kyiv at the time and now I am told well, not right now.

Meanwhile the Ukrainian government and several prominent journalist/activists/pundits have tried to calm the situation and are telling the foreigners to stay as it is all talk it seems.

Who is right - whether there will be a Russian incursion into other areas of Ukraine - is yet to be seen. From the rumour mill the great invasion will start in some way shape or form this coming Tuesday.

But you could not see the immediacy of a dreaded war in the faces of those out and about at the streetcar and bus stops as they kept up the latest social media gossip or SMS texted on their phones.

Checking the cell phone and social media at a streetcar stop - MJ Independent photo

The mood on Deribasovskaya Street may have not been jam packed on a Saturday afternoon but that was not because of fears of an imminent war but rather had a lot to do with the weather and a massive wave of the COVID Omicrom variant and flu that is gripping Odessa.

You could still see the locals at least dressed up putting down cash to take guided ride up and down the cobblestones of Deribasovskaya Street.

It was just a chilly ride harkening back to the beginnings of Odessa.

Taking a ride on a horse down Deribasovskaya Street in Odessa, Ukraine - MJ Independent photo

People ask me at the same time telling me the media reports in Canada are telling me I need to get out of here when do I think the war is going to start.

All I can tell them is what I believe, have seen and heard and that is I do not think there ever was going to be a major war here. But when they push me as to when I say it will all start that my gut feeling and best guess is IF and that is a really big IF it does start it will be from February 15th - 23rd.

I have been telling people that for at least a month.

But if there is no war what could Putin and the Russians be up to.

Well here is my theory and that what they are doing is they are actively changing Ukraine’s political and social worlds as we speak.

Groups - described by the people who are experts - as far right wing or neo-Nazis such as the National Front are gaining ground.

The political wing of what was the Azov Division is gaining not only ground but access to weapons.

The international press gave the group a lot of positive press about a week ago and nobody took the time to ask real questions about who they really are and what they may be up to. It was a scramble to put out a story that fit the narrative and the international press grabbed it.

Could it be the same folly the Provisional Government made in Saint Petersburg over a 100 years ago by arming the Social Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks when there was a potential military coup about to happen?

We all know what happened to Aleksander Kerensky’s government because of it. Don’t we?

If we don’t just google Vladimir Lenin.

Could this be one of Vladimir Putin’s goals by amassing troops close to the border with Ukraine?

To provoke and then just let the Ukrainian factions take care of one another?

Young woman out training to defend Ukraine at a group ran by the National Front the political wing of the Azov Division. The “crisis” has gained an important level of public acceptance for the group by being featured by the international press who are not asking a lot of probing questions - photo credit Facebook

But Odessa has adapted.

Life goes on as the times change.

You can see it in the outdoor dining area one restaurant has set up their outdoor patio to be more of a three season affair. It also works well for COVID as you can section groups off.

But I am sorry I have no idea how you would disinfect it and be economically efficient.

With that said the majority of diners I saw on Deribasovskaya on Saturday afternoon were not seated outdoors in geodesic dome but rather, despite the fact COVID is rampant here, unmasked and wall to wall in McDonalds as well as a local popular cafeteria.

Enclosed outdoor patios - MJ Independent photo

Of course as I walked I saw a city still out and attempting to cater to the tourist market.

Was it busy?

No. But it had nothing to do with the pending re-newed major hostilities but rather February is usually Odessa’s coldest month and the Summer beaches are not that attractive to sunbathing in a Speedo right now.

The outdoor sellers were out in full force as they always are year round attempting to sell everything from matryoshkas (stacking dolls), to paintings, flowers and Odessa city garb amongst others.

The biggest damage economically will be if the tourists stay away and Deribasovskaya Street is quiet.

Outdoor sellers were out on Saturday afternoon - MJ Independent photo

With the loss of the access, many in the foreign press had about a week ago, as the various Embassies downgrade their staffing the great press junkets of 100 foreign reporters out at an event is now over.

The foreign press is starting to take a closer look at what ordinary people in Ukraine are doing.

The word “surreal” in how they describe the atmosphere here is certainly going to be worn out by the end of next week.

I would not describe it as surreal or even denial. It is was most people here in Ukraine call living. They have heard all of the threats and lived through a lot during their 30 years of independence.

Sure they are covering the few demonstrations in support of this country in Kyiv but if they are to say these large scale events are happening spontaneously throughout the country put on by local people right now they are either naive, lazy or worse yet outright lying.

Even Ukraine’s leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is questioning the American’s claims there is going to be a major outbreak of hostilities this coming Tuesday. On Saturday he publicly demanded to see the US intelligence that the nation he leads is about to be hit hard.

There are other major concerns in this country as the wide chasm between the rich and poor. There is not much of a middle class to be found here.

A walk in Moldvanka is more than enough to prove it.

One of the older houses or apartment blocks in the Moldvanka section of Odessa. The area was a bedrock of Jewish culture and community until Hitler’s forces showed up - MJ Independent photo

So as I think about the story of the Pied Piper I met down on Deribasovskaya Street I have to wonder really who is playing the tunes for this country.

I have to think about what people are saying to me and how the US seems to be calling the tune right now back at home and how the Ukrainian government with their own intelligence resources see a different thing happening this Tuesday.

And sorry they are not on the same sheet music.

As I told someone who was worried about me back in Moose Jaw “If I can survive - off and on - 30 plus years of Moose Jaw City Council I can survive a war.”

But as they ask me “what happens if they (the Russians) do come?”

Well that is simple I have three pairs of Stanfield’s long johns and a big bottle of Buckley’s - I am ready for anything.

As for the Pied Piper I am sure he will be back on Deribasovskaya Street next Saturday afternoon.

Robert Thomas is the Acting Editor of MJ Independent

As an FYI MJ Independent is still being produced.