By: Carl Bosse

Today, May 2, 2014, news arrived that the uprising in Ukraine has spread all the way to Odessa. In March, 2009, I went to Odessa to visit with Telman Abbasov, President of FIABCI Ukraine and his secretary, Victoria Banker in order to welcome them as members of AREA.

My, things have changed in our very small world since then.

Odessa, a port city, is known as the “Pearl of the Black Sea.” When I arrived at their very primitive airport, Victoria greeted me and, much to my surprise spoke English fluently without any sort of an accent. One could have guessed she might have been from St. Louis. For the next two days I was their guest, and after checking in at the London Hotel (complete with a Beefeater at the front door) I was given the royal tour.

It reminded me, at least in the center portion, of St. Petersburg and, I was to learn, its’ development was part of that internal renaissance that Peter the Great instituted to try to assimilate Eastern Europe into the modern era and meld into Western European culture. This was in the 1700’s.

The city center is beautiful with great gardens and majestic buildings all sitting above the Port, itself, where we visited a business fair (see the first picture) where Telman was promoting FIABCI. However, leaving the city center and the balance of the city seemed very third world in nature.

While I was told that crime was not a problem, after I arrived back in the US, I found that my credit card had been copied, and a perfect set of three cards had landed in Dalton, Alabama and had been used at the local Wal-Mart to buy some big time appliances. I had registered at the hotel on a Tuesday left Thursday morning and arrived back in the States on Friday afternoon. The only time I used a card was at the hotel.

Telman, who looks like the classic eastern European gentleman, spoke very little English and Victoria was a masterful translator and cultural interpreter. We communicated on a very high level.

I found him to be a man of considerable vision and am pleased to see that his pet project of creating an MLS service for the whole of Ukraine has made great strides.

A highlight was having dinner at a very formal Russian style restaurant where all of the servers were dressed in colorful peasant dresses and looked wonderful. The menu, all in Russian, was extensive and Victoria helped me with the ordering. I had authentic Borsht for the first time in my life and then several other exotic dishes, all very tasty, consisting of typical Russian fare.

We have maintained contact since then, but things did go quite after Crimea’s overrun. I sent him an email and then decided I might be causing more harm than good and backed off.

I pray for them. The rioters, as shown on television today, were right in heart of Odessa where all of the beautiful buildings and gardens are located, just above the port, itself.

Members of the TITUL Group of Odessa, Ukraine man their exhibit at the Eastern European winter real estate fair held in Odessa during the 2nd week of March. From left to right: Victoria Banker, special assistant to the President; Company president Telman Abbasov and the exhibit’s permanent hostess (name unknown.) Mr. Abbasov is also president of FIABCI Ukraine. FIABCI is the international real estate federation founded in Paris in 1945. Carl Bosse held a series of meetings with the company to discuss ways and means of working together.

Victoria Banker and Telman Abbasov gave Carl Bosse a wonderful tour of Odessa. Here, Victoria Banker points out some interesting features about the Grand Opera House, which is among the gems of Eastern Europe and is one reason the Odessa is called “The Pearl of the Black Sea”.

Victoria Banker, who was born and raised in Odessa and is completely fluent in English, and is Mr. Abbasov’s personal assistant, is shown with members of the television crew who filmed a meeting between Mr. Abbasov and Carl Bosse of AREA discussing the potential of working together. We made a video of the trip. It was very well done and AREA has it archived.