She's gotta have it

The downside to being a ruling empress back in the days when European royalty really ruled was that getting married would have meant losing power, and so if you had any sexual appetite whatsoever it had to be satisfied outside of marriage, which immediately meant that you had a voracious sexual appetite, and the next thing you know people are claiming you're into fucking horses. The upside was that you weren't expected to actually fight the wars you started, the way emperors sometimes were, so you could tell your general 'Get me that fortress' and it just might work, without your ever having to leave the comfort of the Summer Palace. That's how Odessa became part of the Russian empire, and now Catherine the Great is all over the city. Lots of things are named after her, including one of the main streets, and one of the squares has a huge Catherine the Great statue. There's also a smaller bust of General Potemkin who did all the work. (Incidentally, Tiraspol was also brought under the Russian crown by order of Catherine the Great, so there are some statues of the Empress mixed in with the statues of Vladimir Ilyich.) Anyway, Odessa is a beautiful city. Trees canopy the streets and it's full of old palaces adorned with actual statues and gargoyle-y, angel-y sculptures. And plus there's the sea.

The beautiful people scene here is a little too beautiful for me, though. The heels and the clothes and the hair and the make-up. And the guys, too, with the pointy shoes and hair product and expensive jeans. Even the guy running my hostel is one of the beautiful people, with his dyed hair and unbuttoned shirt and his cigarettes. I've stayed in a lot of hostels in a lot of places, and they're never run by the beautiful people. Except in Odessa. He has some kind of problems "with the business" so "if anyone asks, please tell them you are my... guest." And then he winked. I bet he has orgies on boats.