George Gittoes in Ukraine: Odessa bunkers down as fears grow in lead-up to Victory Day

With the annual parade due in Moscow's Red Square, fears are growing in Ukraine the Russians will increase bombing as May 9 looms.

" ... we will film as much of this very finite and very threatened street culture before everyone has to go inside and shelter from the predicted bombing which is anticipated ... in the run up to the May Day Victory parades in Moscow," Gittoes said.

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When the filmmaker and his partner, Hellen Rose, arrived in the port city on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, they were afforded a degree of "normality".

They bought mugs emblazoned with images of sinking Russian ships and anti-Russian cartoons in "tourist shops". Now the city is locked down.

"Our plans are unclear - if transit corridors remain possible we will head back to Kyiv after about 10 more days here. They bombed the airport as we were walking back to our pad, yesterday and sirens sent everyone scurrying," Gittoes said.

"Odessa is the artiest, most art-oriented and art-friendly city I have ever visited.

"The people all look super cool, switched-on, bohemians. There are free concerts in the streets with world-class musicians and the kind of coffee shops and bars you could imagine Modigliani and Picasso enjoying back in Montparnasse in 1907.

"I could not imagine anything more abominable than to see this place bombed and turned into another Mariupol.

"The Ukraine love of freedom is even stronger here than Kyiv where it was remarkable. The people of Odessa are a model of how humanity can evolve through culture and the arts to a higher level where war is an unthinkable thing of the past.

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"What we thought was a fruit market, with an art deco canopy and stalls underneath, is a book market - old and new books in many languages as well as lots of children's books.

"I recognised many of my favourite books from my own library.

"My eyes settled on the satirical art that is being produced and sold about this war. Unlike the kind of old school satirical drawing I do with a pencil or pen, in the tradition of Daumier and Groz, these works are created digitally and printed.

"I purchased five: Putin's face morphing into a pig with a snout and Russian flag ( his piggy eyes are hypnotic); Putin's face on the body of a dwarf; a young Putin with women's blue eye shadow, false eyelashes, rosy cheeks and lipstick; a close-up of the classic black and white photo of Hitler and Mussolini in the back of a limo on parade but Hitler's face switched for that of Putin; and my favourite, which I have already appropriated into a drawing, is of a fat Russian soldier with a Z on his body armour and the head of a pig, under a helmet, in one hand he holds a bag of loot and over his shoulder some appliance he has stolen, protruding from two of his ammo pouches are the necks of bottles of vodka.

"As we strolled back there were two earth-shaking thuds and then the sirens started. The Russians had bombed the airport.

"We had imagined we would be able to film the Potemkin Steps and Black Sea beaches but for several city blocks back from the shoreline, it is all, totally blocked off with white sandbags and steel tank traps.

"There is an army of nervous soldiers guarding narrow entry points.

"We were arrested when I took a photo of Hellen well away from the blockade. We were marched off to a guard post and our passports and press IDs were scrutinised by a succession of officers, then my camera grabbed, and the two photos of Hellen deleted.

"As we were freed, I shook hands with the two arresting officers and patted them on the shoulder telling them they were "doing a good job".

"There is a total curfew. We must buy food as this could go on for some days. No one will be allowed outside, including those with international press credentials like ours.

"We are going to soak up our freedom today before the lockdown."

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