Comparing desovietisation as a practice and Europeanisation as a value in two Black Sea cities

This article reports a comparative study that examines the Black Sea port cities of Batumi (Georgia) and Odesa (Ukraine). Building on Europeanisation as a value invoked in discourse and desovietisation as an observable spatial practice, the article argues that the intensity of one does not directly reflect the intensity of the other. The analysis reveals that Batumi’s officials and developers invoke European identity with a comparable rhetorical intensity to that of Odesa, even though desovietisation in Batumi remains relatively modest, being incorporated into tourism and investment planning rather than enshrined in legislation. By contrast, Odesa has pursued desovietisation through explicit statutory instruments, such as decommunisation and, since 2023 and accelerated by wartime urgency, derussification legislation. However, its Europeanising discourse remains more equivocal and is entangled in unresolved questions about which elements of its 19th-century cosmopolitan past constitute authentic European heritage. The article finds that Batumi’s Europeanisation process is dual and contradictory. The first phase of change (until 2012) reflects a discourse of Europeanisation, whereas later, this turns into a largely constructive and forward-looking process, creating a sense of global attraction through new architecture and city branding. In contrast, Odesa’s approach is backward-looking and restorative, focusing on the legal protection of an urban fabric assumed to pre-date Soviet rule. However, both strategies risk replacing the civic and democratic substance that European integration is meant to represent with symbolic or aesthetic markers of European identity.

Batumi · city branding · de-Russification · European identity · Europeanization · Odesa · post-Soviet cities · urban heritage · Urban planning · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European Politics and Security · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics