Mark Twain and

Ukraine

Samuel Langhorne
Clemens (November 30,
1835 – April 21, 1910)
 In August 1867, an American steamship named the
Quaker City moored at the Grafska pier in Sevastopol.
One of the passengers was the American writer Mark
Twain.
 "I arrived in Sebastopol harbor, trembling with
fear, and thought that I would be exposed and
hung," the writer confessed in his diary. The fact is
that Twain lost his passport and managed to get to
Crimea on the passport of his cabin mate.
 Americans were taken on a tour to Inkerman and Balaklava.
The messengers of the governor proposed to arrange a meeting
with Russia's Tsar Alexander II, who was on holidays in Crimea.
Twain wrote with a tinge of sarcasm in his diary,
"Unfortunately we did not have enough time, were running
out of coal, and were forced to refuse the pleasure of
meeting the emperor."
 The Quaker City departed from Sevastopol to
Odesa to stock up on coal.
Upon arrival the writer admitted, "From the guide-
books we understood that there was absolutely
nothing to see in Odesa. In any case, we had the
entire day to enjoy a casual walk through the
city."
 Twain liked Odesa. He even compared it to America:
"I set foot on the roads of Odesa and for the first time
after a long time finally felt completely like home.
Odesa looks exactly like an American city: beautiful,
wide streets and small homes, acacia trees lining the
sidewalks, streets and stores bustling with
customers, and pedestrians walking to work in a
rush.
Wherever you look-to the right or to the left -you see
America!”
 He wrote:
“We only found two pieces of statuary, and this was
another blessing. One was a bronze image of the Duc
de Richelieu, grand-nephew of the splendid Cardinal. It
stood in a spacious, handsome promenade, overlooking
the sea, and from its base a vast flight of stone steps
led down to the harbor—two hundred of them, fifty feet
long, and a wide landing at the bottom of every twenty.”
After a day and a night in Odesa the ship set off to
Yalta
 At Livadia,
The Emperor offered to show the Livadia Palace and
its park and then invited the guests for a breakfast
with the royal family, where they served lemon tea
with sushka (cracker ring).
"They did not charge an admission fee," Twain
wrote in amazement.
The tourists went to visit Oreanda, where they were
received by the tsar's brother Grand Duke Mikhail
and his wife. Twain wrote down in his diary,
"The ceremony of introduction was just as
simple as the one the emperor gave." At 2:30 in
the afternoon, all the guests were summoned to
the table. "They call breakfast what we call
lunch," Twain noted in his diary.
 In 1869 Twain's first major novel entitled “The
Innocents Abroad” was published. Needless to say,
the Crimean episodes made their contribution to the
fame of Mark Twain.
 The cruise had a happy ending for Mark Twain.
During the trip he met a fellow passenger Charles
Langdon, who showed him a picture of his
sister Olivia. She will become his wife, after a long
court. The Writer later claimed to have fallen in love!
with her at first sight.