Daily Times

It is here on the charming Deribasovska pedestrian street that Viktor Oliynik has planted his easel to capture in pastel colours the wartime transformation of Odessa, whose architectural gems are now partially hidden behind sandbags.

Meanwhile, the city of Mykolaiv 130 kilometres (80 miles) to the northeast bears some scars from holding back the advance of Russian forces from occupied Crimea to the port city of Odessa.

After five weeks of war, the cities are barely recognisable even to their residents. Turning his back to some of the Odessa street’s emblematic sites, such as the former Bolshaya Moskovskaya hotel, an Art Nouveau jewel also known as the House of Faces for the decorations that adorn its facade, Oliynik attacked his canvas in the soft light of the late afternoon.

“I’m used to painting Odessa,” said the artist sporting a three-day stubble and black beret perched on his head.

“But today I’m taking advantage of this situation, I never would have imagined such a scene,” taking a second to point with his brush to the obstacles and fortifications along the street bordered by an elegant garden.

“This is how an epoch of chaos gives way to an epoch of equilibrium,” he prophesied in a dramatic voice.

Further up the street, on the square outside the Transfiguration church, men are engrossed in games of dominos, chess and backgammon, oblivious to the sporadic wails of air raid sirens.

“It’s really hurtful” to see the extent of the transformation of one’s hometown, said Vladyslav Haidarzhi, 25, who has been volunteering to deliver aid to troops and hospitals in Mykolaiv.

“For example some of my friends who left Odessa on the first day of war and came back after one month were shocked,” he told AFP.

“They were shocked to see that many roads are closed with different steel objects in order to make traffic of cars slower,” he said. “They could not believe their eyes.”