This page was created by Zoë Wilkinson Saldaña. The last update was by Isabella Buzynski.
Café Robina
“Every Odessan, regardless of social position, considers it necessary to go to the Robina or Fanconi at least once in their lives . . . To live in Odessa and not go to the Robina is like being in Rome and not seeing the pope.”
Local Odessa journalists even began to speak about a certain social type: the Robinisti, the habitué of Café Robina. The most typical Robinisti was presumably a young man, son of the middle class, well bred and well educated, who should have been the pride of polite society but was its nemesis. According to journalists, Robinistis were always immaculately dressed, giving every appearance of gentility, but in fact were devious, cynical men. The journalist Satana pointedly unmasked the young men as social frauds: “Look at them. They have chic visiting cards, collars brilliant and elegant, ties that are something delicious. All signs stamp them as higher gentlemen. But if you probe one, you will find a rogue, a thorough rogue.”