WCO Charter

We are not a government. We are not a business. We are not a political force. We are the guardians of the Odesa spirit. We are a bridge between Odesa and the world. We are a platform for those who cannot help but do something for their city. The WCO Charter is an agreement between generations.

We, Odesites of the world — those who were born in Odesa, live in it, or are connected to it through memory, love, and responsibility — accept this Charter as a moral agreement between generations.
Odesa does not belong to us. We received it on loan from the past and are obliged to pass it on to the future undiminished.

This Charter describes not what we want to change, but what we are obliged to preserve.

1. Who is an Odesite

An Odesite is not a matter of origin, but a way of thinking.

An Odesite is someone who:
— Accepts complexity and mixing as a strength, not a threat
— Acknowledges the entire history of the city — without erasures or amputations
— Lives with irony, but not with cynicism
— Does not demand purity of identity
— Experiences the city as a living organism, not as a slogan or a backdrop

Odesites included Greeks and Italians, Germans and French, Jews and Ukrainians, Moldovans and Armenians, Bulgarians, Turks, and Poles. Their children remain Odesites in Odesa, New York, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Toronto, and Melbourne. Those who choose this city as their home become Odesites. In Odesa, everyone is one of us.

2. What is Odesa

a) The Port City Nature
Odesa is a port city. This is not an economic function, but a state of mind.
The port shaped: openness to the “other” and an absence of fear of mixing; practical thinking and a commercial ethic; mobility and adaptability; distrust of dogma and pathos; a focus on results rather than declarations.
For Odesa, the sea is not a border, but a space of freedom. The shore is not an edge, but a gateway to the world. Even if the port as an economy changes, its port-city nature as DNA remains untouched.

b) Freedom as a Spirit
Freedom is Odesa’s primordial state. It is not ideological, but practical: freedom of choice and movement, freedom of trade and speech, freedom of irony and identity.
Freedom here was born from the sea and the port, not from political declarations. It is older than any authority and will outlive any regime.

c) Mixing as a Form
Odesa has never been and cannot be mono-national, monolingual, or one-dimensional. For us, mixing is not a threat, but a source of strength: multinationality, multilingualism (the Odesa language is a blend), cultural hybridity.
Odesa identity is built not on exclusion (“not like us”), but on inclusion (“everyone is one of us”).

d) Irony as Protection
Humor and irony in Odesa are not entertainment, but a way of survival. Odesa irony deflates pathos, destroys false hierarchies, makes it possible to endure tragedies, protects against fanaticism, and turns conflict into dialogue.
A city that knows how to laugh at itself cannot be conquered by dogma.

e) Practicality as Ethics
Odesa is a city of practical thinking. Here, people value results rather than loud words; the ability to negotiate; an honest deal; common sense.
Ideologies come and go. Practicality remains.

3. What We Recognize

The Entire History — Without Censorship.
Odesa has experienced 2,500 years of human presence and 231 years as a city under this name. We recognize all layers of history: the ancient Greek period, the Middle Ages, the Italian, Lithuanian, Ottoman, Russian imperial, Soviet, and Ukrainian periods — each layer does not cancel the previous one, but builds upon it.

The Trauma of the 20th Century
The first half of the 20th century became a catastrophe for Odesa: the destruction of its cosmopolitan fabric, revolutions and civil war, the Holodomors, the Holocaust, repression, and mass emigration. This is a trauma that cannot be forgotten. But the city survived not because it erased its memory, but because it managed to revive itself while preserving its spirit. We have no right to cultural amnesia.

Our Place in the World
Odesa is a Ukrainian city by political choice and civilizational orientation. Our Ukrainian identity does not contradict our multinational character. On the contrary — it strengthens it. Odesa proves that Ukraine is not an ethnic fortress, but a European project of openness. Odesa does not turn in on itself. It always looks outward.

4. What We Are Obliged to Protect

There are things without which Odesa ceases to be Odesa. They are not subject to revision.

Unacceptable:
— Cultural amputation — erasure of any layer of history
— Simplification of identity — reducing Odesa to a single nation, language, or era
— Destruction of the historical fabric — destruction of architectural heritage
— Closing off the port-city nature — turning the city into a continental province
— Prohibition of irony — imposing pathos and ideological seriousness
— Abandoning freedom — any forms of dogmatism and intolerance.

Unchanging:
— Multilingualism — the Odesa language lives through mixing
— Inclusion, not exclusion — “in Odesa, everyone is one of us”
— Respect for memory — recognition of all communities, all eras, all tragedies
— Connection to the sea — Odesa looks to the world
— Practicality — a city of results, not declarations
— Irony — protection against fanaticism.

5. Our Responsibility

To the past — we acknowledge the work of all generations who created this city. We do not erase history.
To the present — we support the city through its trials. We do not abandon Odesa in difficult times.
To the future — we are obliged to pass the city on to the next generations: not destroyed, not simplified, not divided, with its memory preserved, its spirit alive, and its gates to the world open.
Every generation of Odesites is a link in the chain. We have no right to be the generation that breaks this chain.

Moral Formula

Odesa is a city that we received on loan from the past and are obliged to pass on to the future undiminished.

Odesa is not buildings and streets. It is a way of thinking that is older than any authority and stronger than any border.

You cannot simply be born an Odesite by chance. You can only become an Odesite — through embracing complexity, through respect for history, through irony and freedom.

This Charter is the foundation of the activities of the Worldwide Club of Odesites.