Monday – Sevastopol, Ukraine

Once off the ship, we started ticking off monuments, of which there are many. Along the waterfront, there were several large buildings, labelled on the map as Theatres and Hotels, and something called The Centre for Youth, which seemed to be a stage school of some kind. There was a dolphinarium, which was closed, but had a sign, as far as we could tell, which told us that there would be a performance at 2pm. Today was going to be a long day; we were in berth from 8am until 8pm, so watching performing dolphins was a possibility we filed away for later. Sevastopol, amongst other things, is famous for being a biological research location, where dolphins, in particular, have been studied and trained since the end of the second world war. I’m sure dolphins would make belting spies – not sure how you’d debrief them, though…

Sevastopol’s unique location and navigational conditions make it a strategically important Naval point. It was formerly home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but is now home to both the Ukrainian and Russian Navies who control it jointly… an uneasy alliance if ever there was one…

Our meander through the city took us the length of its main shopping street. You wouldn’t have thought so, though; Ukrainians don’t seem to do big shop windows – it was all very low key – not unpleasant, but very different from what we’re used to. Its cathedral was impressive and well worth a glance inside. As with the previous two days, folks around here seem to be devoutly religious, crossing themselves as they enter and leave the building, lighting incense candles in quiet contemplation, and occasionally throwing themselves on the floor in total supplification (or whatever the word is). Not being at all religious myself, it’s something I don’t understand, but I do try to respect their ways, and felt priviledged to be able to look inside their place of workship, which was beautiful, and happy to be able to do so without being mugged on the way out for money, as we were yesterday in Odessa.

At the far end of the main street, we came to a large park boasting more war memorials. Here, though, we also discovered what, for me was the highlight of Sevastopol; The Panorama.

From the outside, ‘The Panorama’ is a large, round building sporting a dome. If I hadn’t have known better, I would have thought it was possibly an opera house or theatre. We arrived at the same time as two coachloads of ship passengers on an excursion around the city, so we waited until the throng had disappeared inside before approaching the woman on the door who was obviously in charge. She explained, as best she could, that entrance to the building would be 50 Ukrainian Roubles each. As luck would have it, we had exactly that in my pocket, which was part of the change from yestereday’s eagles… The lady seemed slightly off-ish with us, until I whipped out our 100-Rouble note, and then her attitude changed completely; she ushered us inside, past an excursion group huddled together in the lobby, and pointed to the stairs inside…

At this point, I should say that we had absolutely no idea what to expect. We’d passed a couple in the park who had sung its praises without actually being able to tell us what it was all about. I remember someone telling me, back home, long before setting off on the cruise, that the place to visit in Sevastopol is The Panorama; again, though, not really managing to convey exactly what it is. My curiosity was sufficiently aroused; what on earth could this large, circular building with a dome contain, that had got people so worked up about?

I’ll try to discribe, as best as I can, what we saw…

The short, spiral, stone staircase took us up the centre of the building to its interior. Now, we were on the inside, on a large, circular walkway, looking out, to the 360-degree inside of the dome and outer walls. On this wall, stretching the entire 360-degrees, and up into the ceiling, was a large painting… I’ll re-phrase – it was huge! It was a battle scene, spanning what would be the full panorama of standing on a hill and looking out, and down across hills, to the horizon beyond. Armies clashed, and regrouped in a vast, undulating landscape. Nearer to the eye of the viewer, the details would become sharper; here, were soldiers preparing to join the battle, some were injured, others were carrying stuff about, such as ammunition and buckets of water; there were trenches and fortifications, in perfectly painted detail. The colours were vivid; at one point you could see the setting sun was visible on the horizon; fires blazed here and there, and in some places, where the fighting was at its most intense, there were explosions and smoke drifting across the battlefield. As if this wasn’t enough, between the circular plinth on which we stood and the wall where the painting was, was a three-dimensional depiction of the foreground, with wagons and sandbags, more of the trenches and fortifications, and the wheel-tracks from wagons that, cleverly, blended-in exactly with the painting. It’s all very difficult to describe, to be sure; the painting was simply brilliant, and the scuptured, three-dimensional foreground completed, what was, frankly, a stunning illusion. There was so much going on in the painting that you could stand there all day and still not be able to take it all in. There were no sound effects, but it was extremely cleverly lit, so that at no time, as you walked around the perimeter of the walkway, did you lose the illusion. One word… AWESOME!!!!

We were sandwiched between two tours, each of which had their own guide who was exlaining what the scene depicted, in stages. Tracey managed to listen in on the talks, and got a greater understanding of the meaning of the piece; I wasn’t really that interested in its meaning, but was thoroughly absorbed in the artistic achievement. In these days of 3D HD Digital cinema, here was a piece of art that predates all of that, and creates an impact no less impressive. When we first emerged out of the top of the steps, we were confronted by a woman who wanted to take money off everyone for the priviledge of taking photographs. Having no more change, we declined, but must confess to sneaking my camera out once we were out of her sight… this was just too good to miss. The Ukrainians seem big on authority; the ones we’d come across didn’t seem that friendly, and the guides were quite funny to hear, as they ushered the tours around the walkway, a bit like being ordered to move along and pay attention, as opposed to being asked politely… something that raised a few eyebrows and smirks among the crowd of visitors that were, as far as I could tell, almost entirely from The Black Watch.

By lunchtime, we’d seen everything we wanted to see in Sevastopol, as had most passengers, I think. It’s a beautiful place, but not somewhere that seemed to offer much to the casual visitor; we spent part of the afternoon on deck, and the rest of the afternoon taking an extended siesta. There were no terminal buildings or seafront bars, within easy walking distance of the ship, offering free wi-fi, so this post and yesterday’s have, once again, been added together, from the Ship’s Wi-fi – excruciatingly slow and painfully expensive (so if you haven’t yet read yesterday’s post from Odessa, be sure to scroll down and check it out, and read our argument with the Eagle-men…

Wi-fi being as slow and flaky as it is, blog posts are likely to be like buses for a while…. nothing for ages, then loads all coming at once….

Just one more Ukranian port to go…..