On the afternoon of September 25, 2007 we arrived in Odessa, the so called Pearl of the Black Sea. Our hotel was built during the Soviet era and had recently been partially renovated. We had a two room suite with a great sea view. The accommodations were strange but adequate. The toilet didn't quite flush enough, there were a few openings in the walls, but so what. Though we only had a couple of hours or so we decided to talk a walk over to Arkadia Beach. Our guide book said that, though polluted by raw sewage, it was the most popular beach in the Ukraine. The woman at the desk said that it was about a 10 minute walk – at least that what we thought she said. Her English was only a little better than our Ukrainian. We walked and walked until, magically, we found the beach, broad and with fairly clean looking white sand. However, no one was swimming or even lying on the beach. It was obviously off season. We did see quite a few people fishing. The mostly closed amusements and restaurants, and our lack of knowledge of the area or the language, gave Arkadia a Felliniesque air. If you are not familiar with Fellini, I mean it seemed kind of surreal. This video is an attempt to capture our adventure in, as usual, a single take.

Note: Though we arrived as tourists in the Ukraine and the footage we shot, photos we took reflect this, even in 2007 we could not help notice some signs of tension and disunity. Were these precursors of the war started by the separatists with Russian support in 2013? Hard to say. However, these recent events have given us another reason to take our Ukraine videos from our archives and upload them to this site to be shared.

For more from around the world from AD Guida Video Productions, check us out on Daily Motion (6O+ videos and counting). Also, if you’re so inclined we’d be pleased if you visited our creative ledge at www.guidaproductions.com