On a day in early March, volunteers are clearing the Odesa City Garden of rotten wooden beams, stones and bags of rubbish. This is the first Saturday clean-up day, and it’s been organised by locals involved in defending the Summer Theatre, which is located in the garden.
The theatre is a longstanding symbol of the struggle between Odesa residents and their local government. In 2016, the city council leased this part of the historic centre to a private company for 49 years.
“We believe this company could belong to Volodymyr Galanternik,” Svitlana Podpalaya, an activist with the Green Leaf organisation, tells me when we meet in a nearby cafe.
