Viral footage has emerged of a row on public transport in Ukraine, after an elderly woman demanded another passenger stop speaking in Russian. It happened in Odessa, a major city on the country’s Black Sea coast.
News agency RIA Novosti reported that the altercation began when the woman accused a fellow traveller on a local tram of speaking in a “foreign” language, demanding she switch to Ukrainian, and turning on bystanders who had tried to intervene. One passenger, identifying himself as a police officer, asked her “do you want to go to jail?” He added that, if she wanted to continue to rail against those speaking the language, she could “go whistle in Lviv or Ternopil.”
Unlike the two cities he mentioned, in the West of the country, Odessa is primarily Russian-speaking and is known for a unique dialect of the language, influenced by the Yiddish of its historic Jewish population. The city was founded by Russian empress Catherine the Great in 1794 as an important trade port, when the region was an integral part of her empire, ruled from the then-capital of St Petersburg.
Also on rt.com Protesters in Odessa call for statue of Catherine the Great to be toppled in attempt ‘to get rid of Russian influence’A battle over the cultural heritage of Odessa has broken out in recent years, fueled by the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and an increasingly vocal ultranationalist movement. Earlier this month, rallies were held calling for the toppling of a statue to the Empress in the center of the city, in what organisers called an attempt at “getting rid of all the manifestations of Russian influence that remained after the colonial period in our history.” The monument had been installed by a local artist in 1900.
Traditionally popular with Russian and Ukrainian holidaymakers, Odessa gained a tragic reputation as a hotspot for clashes between opposing sides during the 2014 Maidan. 46 Russia-leaning activists were killed along with two Ukrainian nationalists, and more than 200 people were injured during a standoff in the city center that led to the torching of the Trade Unions House.
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