From Superpower to Pistachios
In its heyday Aegina was the foremost commercial sea power in the Mediterranean and said to employ 470,000 slaves. Today, the island more modestly boasts cultivating the world’s finest pistachio nuts.
The Oecumenical Patriarchate and Donkey Island
“I despise the Greek state but I adore Hellenism” – Ion Dragoumis
The Vallery of the Fennel
“The mountains look on Marathon-” wrote Byron, not imagining they might one day be comprised of rubbish, but the Ministry of the Interior may bring this miracle about.
Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottinghamopolis
One evening last month Premier Mitsotakis, the implacable Sheriff of Greece, had the nerve to sit down in front of a pretty painting by Volanakis and for two hours harangue three TV journalists (and a national-wide audience) on all the things that are going wrong in this country. It was an impressive list.
The Greek Non-Work Ethic
I knew the end of summer had come when, in late September, I found myself attending a business lunch in one of Athens luxury hotels that, like all its rivals in the same category, was still reeling from the disaster of an Americanless season and was falling over itself, or at least its PR people were, to make the·function a memorable occasion.
Samos: Sausages and Eels (Plus Serpents) in Paradise
Two-year Samian resident Marc Dubin takes an unstarry-eyed look at a reputed east Aegean Eden.
Happy 2500th Birthday, Dear Democracy!
Its kiosks are the best-stocked in the world, its souvlaki stands are without parallel, its
The Hand-loomed Flokati
It is getting increasingly difficult to find, but the shaggy wool rug, woven in the traditional way, a familiar symbol of Greece, is still being made.
Trying to Make an Issue of ‘Macedonia’
Like Slovenia and Croatia before it, the Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (referred to in Greece as ‘Skopje’) is holding a referendum on independence this month. There is no feeling of anxiety in Athens, however, since the republic, conceived by Tito in 1944 to contain Serbia, has no chance of making it on its own.
Walking along the Streets of Athens
A potential investor in Greece can go to one of the consultant firms who will answer all questions.