Athens

“Showing a German journalist around crisis-shaken Athens feels a lot like getting a shot of adrenalin in the heart.” By Nikitas Karagiannis

At the beginning of our acquaintance, I realized that 29-year-old Sven Stockrahm from Zeit Online had no idea what’s really going on here. For one, because it was his first time in Greece and therefore he had nothing to start on, and also because he had hardly left the Plaka, the touristic area around Syntagma Square, or gone across Vassilissis-Sofias or Vassiliseos Konstantinou Boulevard. What he had learned about our country in recent years came from the not-always-objective publications mainly in the German press.

“I am certain that the Greek crisis is not only what is being circulated about it in Europe, and I really want to find out more about it,” he admitted to me one evening over a glass of wine with co-workers. I offered my services to show him the Athens of the memorandum, the wounded human existences that cannot be seen amidst the classical antiquities: everything that is seeking to hide from “indiscrete” eyes in its fundamentally shaken political establishment. But I also offered to show him the chic quarters of Athens, the hot spots of this city for distraction and art. Sven accepted my offer.


We walked for hours: Omonia Square, 3 Septemvriou, Patission and Acharnon Streets, Vathis Square. On Menandrou Street we witnessed the arrest of migrants, on Sophokleous Street we watched the city’s soup kitchen distribute food, we passed by long queues near the contact office of Doctors without Borders. In the Psyri neighbourhood, Sven took a photo of the Empros theatre and then we entered newly opened art galleries. On Agia Irini Street and Karytsi Square he saw how the city rose from the dead. He was fascinated by the historic neighbourhood of Anafiotika and the rock of Areopagus. I talked, while he listened and took photographs.

The Greek crisis: media and reality

When we were done, I asked about his impressions. He was shocked and overwhelmed. “I did have my doubts about what is written about Greece in the German media,” he began. “Clichés and prejudices are aired there, like that the Greeks are lazy, neglect their work and blame others for their mistakes. It was clear to me that it could not be the whole truth. When I came here, I wanted to know more about what is actually going on.”


His first evening on Syntagma Square, he was unable to identify any crisis. Where are the people who are doing poorly? A week later, still in Athens, he began to understand. “I saw a lot of closed up shops, beggars, homeless people sleeping on the pavements, but you can find all that in other big cities, like in Berlin. I told myself, yeah, it’s a problem, but it’s not so tragic. Then I learned that the people were burning furniture in their fireplaces or stoves because they have no money for heating oil. That was one of the indications of existing poverty. People also told me about the big cuts in salaries and pensions, about youth unemployment. Ultimately, you can only understand what’s going on when you converse with the people.”

The survival mentality

In spite of his dismay about how the crisis impacts the everyday lives of the people, he believes he has come to better understand the mentality of the Greeks, “for example when I expected that no one will be out and about in the evening, but now understand that the people want to escape from their misery and that is why they go out.” This remark referred to the Gazi district with its crowded bars. “At the beginning, I didn’t expect that in a poor country that’s reached rock bottom, but now I can totally understand it.” It is clear to him that life goes on, if arduously, and that the people need something to hold onto. And he hopes we’ll make it.

“Nothing that I heard about your country is true. It’s not the people’s fault that they can’t find jobs and any German would understand that if they would see what’s happening here and how dramatically your lives have changed. There are problems in Germany, too, but none to compare with what you’re going through here. You have to see it, not just read about it.”


Sven admires what the Greeks taught him as filotimo. “It’s true!” he says with enthusiasm. “In spite of the crisis, I have felt this filotimo: it’s not just hospitality, but a mixture of pride, solidarity and fairness.” He can see what Athens once looked like from a few old buildings that he liked. “You breathe history here all the way back to antiquity.” He was not at all impressed by the cement buildings that have been put up everywhere over the past 60 years. “I noticed them already from the air, shortly before we landed in Athens. But, once you have dealings with the people you get used to them. Yet, the best things about my stay were the new friends who made me feel at home. I will be back!” he ensures me and the joy of having discovered a very different, for him new world that now belongs to him was visible.