The song sung briefly by the Russian representative. A strange moment and she stopped after a few lines. The song of longing (from a Soviet icon) that we briefly heard evoked an audible gasp/scoff and tension-filled chuckles.

Near the Black Sea
There is a city I see in my dream
Oh, if you just knew how it's dear me!
Near the Black Sea, it's opened to me,
The city is in blooming acacias!
Near the Black Sea ...

Leonid Utyosov

While there may have been legitimate procedural arguments against how the Extraordinary Session was organized (by other state parties), to me Russia itself cannot have a legitimate or respected voice at the table in regards to Odesa. Their entire argument against "procedural norms" is not only mute, it's completely irrelevant based on the reality of the threat to Ukrainian sovereignty, cultural heritage, and their right to exist as Ukrainians.

See Ukraine take the floor at 3:49:40

Oy, that was a heated last half hour. Thanks all for posting updates throughout this session. I'm very curious to see whether the tensions raised during this session are tamped down again by the time the committee reconvenes later this year.

Oh thank you for that! I found these 2 of Utyosov singing it in c1955
a. Audio only with translation
b. Video in true "Soviet period" dance band style which obviously owes a lot to Transatlantic influences!

Utyosov, whose career went back to the 1930s, had apparently been a "favourite" of Stalin! Can you just picture the "great man", Uncle Joe, sitting somewhere in the Kremlin, after spending a day signing a few death warrants and patting some little children on the head , puffing on his pipe listening to a crackly 78rpm vinyl recording of it.......! I wonder if Putin does the same with more modern technology (Алекса - спектакль "У Черного моря")....... dreaming that he too, one day soon might be sitting by the side of the Black Sea......in "Odessa".

The song, and its use by the Russian rep say so so much about Russia and its relationship with Ukraine (and Odesa!). Note the song's reference to "native land", the Great Patriotic War and the "Hero city" (Odesa was one of 12). Such a shame it couldn't establish a positive, friendly one with Ukraine as an independent country, where Russians could continue to go for their holidays and be friends with their fellow Slavs with whom they share so much......

The period music also took me back to my slightly later (1969!!!!) visit to Odessa (as it then was)...... somehow I had got a ticket for the opera (photo of the building on this Web site) to see Pikovaya Dama (Queen of Spades - Tchaikovsky) and found myself in a box where my fellow audience was a group of "Soviet" girls .... they couldn't speak English and I had no Russian, but, no matter, we shared a мороженое afterwards and the Cold War seemed a long long way away...... happy days!

Yonhap News in Korea was real quick to put the Russian representative's song as the background to a video montage of bombing and destruction in Ukraine. I think Korea particularly finds the dark humor in this absurdity having experienced the Japanese Colonial Period and the destruction of cultural heritage, systemic cultural theft, and the attempted erasure of national identity.

https://www.yna.co.kr/view/MYH20230126011200704

Ah indeed, I had completly fogotten about the anti-ISIS campaign.

Thanks Liam

Ukraine's Odesa Wins UNESCO Status Despite Russia Opposition [Moscow Times/Amsterdam-based, banned in Russia]

Russian diplomat slams UNESCO's decision on Odessa as politically motivated [State-owned Russian News]