Welcome!

Our flat is off of Grecheskaya Stz. which is in the center of Odesa (Ukrainian spelling; Russian is Odessa). To enter the flat you need to walk through a street level tunnel to get to the court yard where there are entrances to many of the buildings. This is the entrance to ours.

When you walk through the tunnel you can see the electrical feed for the building. I'm glad it's out of the rain!

Anyone want some free power?

We live on the second floor and these are the stairs up. During Soviet times the building must have been beautiful with marble stairs and nice wood work. But times are hard and buildings are not being maintained via state-sponsored employment as they had been in the good ole days.

There has been the push for privatization which also has had an interesting effect on housing and buildings. Some people own their flats and others do not but everyone still has to pay the same monthly fee to the government for the building infrastructure (heat, water, cleaning public spaces, etc.) unless the entire building is privately owned. Unfortunately, this fee seems to disappear and services are being minimally provided. People seem to know who to complain to but it doesn't do much good and if you have a major problem and have complained to much ... well we all know how that goes.