In 1999, a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Oddy spent a month on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. He’d gone there to explore the sprawling network of some 2500 sanatoria that had once been an integral part of the Soviet Union’s healthcare system. Traveling between Odessa and Yalta, and armed with his 5x4 large format camera, Oddy’s aim was to coax these institutions that had been the Eastern bloc’s equivalent of spas into revealing something about the obsolete political system that had led to their creation. At the Magnolia Prophylactorium, the heated indoor pool was located in a dedicated annex and adorned with mosaics and abstract frescoes. In these one-time showcases for the benefits of communism no expense was spared.