Few Athenians are so-called ‘True Athenians’ and the city often seems like a collection of villagers, refugees and outsiders.
Author and journalist Diane Shugart walks Sofka around the changing neighbourhood of Pangrati to discuss this, the ‘15-minute city’ and why the kiosk or periptero is so significant.
Anthropologist Roxane Caftanzoglou reveals how Anafiotika, under the Acropolis, was built in the 19th century by islanders from Anafi, whose descendants still live there.
Refugees are nothing new in Athens. Historian Nikos Nikolaides of Big Olive Walks unpacks the traumas of the Greek refugees fleeing Turkey in the 1922 ‘Catastrophe.’
Outside Tomas’ Armenian kebab place in Neos Kosmos – once a neighbourhood of refugees and Armenians.
Marina Liakis (in yellow) discusses how she started the NGO Zaa’tar with its refuge and falafel café, Tastes of Damascus. run by her partner’s Syrian family and worked in by refugees. From Left: SZ, Lara Papadimitriou, Marina Liakis, Hassan Mheidan holding their baby, plus members of his family.
At the Victoria Square Project there are community arts projects for all. Young director Niovi Zarambouka-Chatzimanou says, ‘We do not talk about refugees and migrants inside our space; we talk about neighbours.’