If I had grown up in the GDR and, at my age, had spent half my life in the GDR [1], I would be much more familiar with the Black Sea, because for the population east of the Iron Curtain, many holiday destinations that we in the West took for granted were inaccessible, but places like Constanța in Romania [2] or Varna (Варна) in Bulgaria [3], which are on the Black Sea, were accessible and therefore very popular. Interestingly, I did visit Odessa once and of course saw the famous Odessa steps that can be seen in the film “Battleship Potemkin” [4]. A friend invited me to a restaurant directly above the steps and we drank the best or most expensive vodka, but when I compare it with a cheap vodka from the supermarket, I can't taste any difference. So it's not worth drinking vodka. Then we visited Arkadia Beach [5], but the beach was sobering in terms of atmosphere (see picture), the water of the Black Sea was green because of the algae.
The Black Sea lies between Europe and Asia - at least according to the English page of Wikipedia [6]. That is not entirely correct, because the only part of Asia is part of Turkey. And the coastline there makes up less than 23% of the entire coastline of the Black Sea. The Black Sea is 436,000 square kilometers in size and is therefore about the size of Sweden. It goes down to a depth of 2212 meters.
On the trip through Georgia I came to the Black Sea for the first time before reaching Kobuleti (ქობულეთი), a beach resort. We drove to the beach and had a picnic there. It was very windy and overcast, later it cleared up a bit, but it was still inhospitable and the Black Sea did not look inviting. There was also a toilet [7] and it was probably the worst toilet of the whole trip; the situation was somewhat alleviated by the two puppies who had found a place to rest in front of the urinals. Later we drove to Batumi and the evening on the beach promenade was particularly beautiful and this is the first photo that I have included in this blog post. Batumi reconciled me with the Black Sea, on the one hand the beach and on the other hand through very beautiful views from the Botanical Garden. And I think I should comment on the Argonaut legend; perhaps when I write more about Batumi.
Links and Annotations:
[1] Officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR); 07.10.1949-03.10.1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constan%C8%9Ba
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna,_Bulgaria
[4] Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец „Потёмкин“), is a 1925 Soviet silent epic film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin The Potemkin Stairs or Potemkin Steps (Ukrainian: Потьо́мкінські схо́ди, Russian: Потёмкинская лестница) are considered a formal entrance into the city from the sea and are one of the symbols of Odesa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_Stairs
[5] Black Sea and Arkadia Beach https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2013/02/black-sea-and-arkadia-beach.html
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea
[7] The coordinates according to Google Maps: N41.895975044329, E41.77132868614155
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