The Tower of Babel's "Odessa Story" is full of poetry, passion and desire

The train from Kiev to Odessa passed through vast wilderness and rapid rivers under the moonlight, all the way south. Just like when I was a child, I faced the window and looked at the flashing lights outside and the passing stations in the dark. I don’t know how long it took. The distant horizon gradually turns red, and the distant horizon is filled with mist and smoke. I stayed up all night until the sun came up. At this time, I found that the train was speeding along the coastline, and mountains, tall buildings and people appeared on the seaside. I know, Odessa is here.

Although this is my first visit to Odessa, I am very familiar with this Ukrainian town on the Black Sea. I am familiar with the fact that half of the residents of this city are Jews, so Odessa is also called the Jewish City; I am also familiar with the unique streets in this city named after the nationalities of immigrants, such as the famous Jewish Street, French Street and Greek Street. I'm also familiar with the city's famous Café Fanconi. Odessa's black coffee made it famous, and Gorky, Chekhov and Punin made it a gathering place for celebrities. I am more familiar with the events that took place on the Potemkin Steps (also known as the Odessa Steps/Odessa Steps) on the shores of the Black Sea, and the famous movie "Battleship Potemkin" shot based on this event ( Bronosets Potemkin), known as a film textbook.

I began to know and fall in love with this city from Isaac Babel's collection of essays "Odessa Stories". Babel, born in Odessa in 1994, is a Soviet Jewish writer. In the 1930s, he was arrested and imprisoned for criticizing Stalin's personality cult. He was shot on January 27, 1940. Fifty years later, the Italian magazine "European" selected the one hundred best novelists in the world, and Isaac Babel ranked first. Hemingway thought his work was more concise than his own, while Borges thought every paragraph of the Tower of Babel was as beautiful as poetry. The night in Odessa is sweet and intoxicating; the fragrance of acacia is refreshing, and the moon spreads its stunning silver light evenly on the dark sea.

In Odessa, every night, in the ridiculous houses of ordinary citizens, under the black velvet sky, those fat and ridiculous people wearing white socks lie on the sofa and endure dinner violence. Bloating caused by overeating. This is Odessa in Babel's eyes, full of poetry, passion and desire. At 7 o'clock in the morning, the train arrived in Odessa after traveling all night. I didn't sleep a wink all night, and before the train even stopped, I jumped onto the platform with strong steps. In this way, I started my trip to Odessa with Babel's "Odessa Story".