In 1922-1924, more than 270,000 refugees arrived in Macedonia. Most left their homes in Asia Minor by sea and arrived in Thessaloniki by ship. Immediately after disembarking, the refugees had to find accommodation in the city centre (houses, hotels, squares, streets, markets, churches, and other public places). Within a short time, the port and the […]
The best-preserved Macedonian tomb in the greater Thessaloniki area is located in Finikas, at the road junction behind the Agios Pavlos General Hospital of Thessaloniki. The monument was found in the spring of 1987 during construction work on the ring road. It belongs to a broader set of classical and Hellenistic burial monuments that formed […]
The Kalamaria XEN-YWCA was founded in 1925 by Sofia Mavrogordatou to teach local women reading and writing. The goal was to enable women to sign their names when they received their salaries. In 1938 the XEN took over the operation of the kindergarten. The following year XEN acquired a building to house a kindergarten for […]
Anatolia College was founded in 1886 by American missionaries in Merzifon in Asia Minor as a school for members of the Greek and Armenian communities. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the exchange of populations, the school reopened in Thessaloniki in facilities on Allatini Street. In 1930, some female college students founded the Christian Effort […]
The Asia Minor catastrophe and the violent uprooting of hundreds of thousands of refugees from their homes in Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace caused significant economic and social problems. One of the most urgent issues that the Greek state had to deal with the day after the arrival of one and a half million refugees […]
The pressure exerted by the Central Powers on Serbia prompted Entente to deploy troops in Macedonia to help the Serbs. The Macedonian Front was quickly reinforced with a multinational force of French, British, Serbs, Russians, Italians, Greeks, and colonial troops from Asia and Africa, called upon to face the armies of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and […]
The Palataki (Little palace) or Kyverneio (Government House) is a neoclassical building at the cape of Mikro Emvolo or Karabournaki. It is considered a typical example of neoclassical palace architecture with a propylaeum and a peristyle consisting of Ionic columns. There is also a small church, a helipad and access to the sea, where there […]
The marina of Kalamaria (Aretsou) is located on the southern front of the coastal zone of the municipality in “Mikro Emvolo”. It is about seven kilometres from the centre of Thessaloniki and offers 242 berths for boats up to thirty metres long. Eleftherios Venizelos had ceded the coastal zone to the refugees. Over the decades, […]
The Pharmaceutical Museum was founded in 2007 and is housed in the office building of the Pharmaceutical Association of Thessaloniki at 173-175 Ethnikis Antistaseos Street in Finikas. The museum offers visitors the opportunity to see rare exhibits and relics related to the pharmaceutical history of Greece from the 15th century onwards. The museum’s collection includes […]
“We are not building a church for these miserable and unfortunate years but for the vision of a new era, to tell our people that the suffering will pass and that days will come when the settlement of Kalamaria will be an example to all. And then this church will be a worthy monument of […]
The first church of Nea Krini was housed in a makeshift shack, which soon proved to be inadequate and dangerous. In 1948 a fundraising committee was set up to raise money to construct a new church. The limited financial resources of the inhabitants, mainly fishermen, made it challenging to complete the church and required a […]
The settlement of Katirli was small and could not afford a church. But the inhabitants longed to build one. On their initiative, without an appointed priest or prior approval from the Diocese of Thessaloniki, on August 29, 1932, they managed to celebrate the memory of St. John the Baptist in a brick building measuring 11 […]
A shack dedicated to the Taxiarches (the Archangels Michael and Gabriel) initially stood on the site of the future church. The icon was considered miraculous and had come from Asia Minor with the refugees. A procession took place on the evening of the Archangels’ feast day. It was a glorious celebration attended by the band […]
At first, Votsis, Vyzantio, and Kifissia residents gathered at the church of Agios Eleftherios in Depot or the church of Agia Paraskevi in the Dalipi camp. But they wanted to establish their parish. The church’s construction began in 1957 after repeated appeals to government ministers and all residents’ work and donations. The church occupied a […]
The church was founded in 1963 and was completed in 1967. Until then, the residents attended service at the church of Agios Panteleimon in Votsis. The priest conducted the service in a room of the Ninth Primary School. The plot on which the church was built was granted by Pronoia, while the Prefecture of Thessaloniki […]
In 1965, some residents of Nea Krini founded the Association of Workers of Nea Krini Settlement “O Agios Ioannis” and stressed to the Metropolitan of Thessaloniki the immediate need to establish a church in the area. The expected rise in population, the lack of transportation that made it difficult (especially in winter) to access the […]
The parish of Agios Nikolaos was founded in 1926 and struggled to meet its needs with its meagre income. The church was financially supported by Greek expatriates from America, who came from Aretsou (modern Darıca) in Asia Minor, in the amount of 60,000 drachmas. During the Axis occupation of Greece, the Germans caused significant damage […]
Dein Square honours the English officer Dein and his heroic deeds at Rysion near Aretsou (modern Darıca) in Bithynia in September 1922. Rysion was a wealthy town of about 8,000 inhabitants, mostly fishermen and farmers. After the landing of the Greek army in Smyrna in the spring of 1919, a unit of the Greek Red […]
The Park of Unforgettable or Lost Homelands was built in 1982-1986 to mark Thessaloniki’s 2300th birthday. It covers a large area and includes a small outdoor amphitheatre, an open space, lawns, ornamental plants, and a staircase leading to the monument dedicated to the Lost Homelands of Hellenism. The memorial is the work of the sculptor […]
The Park of the Missing Cypriots is a place of remembrance dedicated to the people in Cyprus who were reported missing after the Turkish invasion in 1974. The Kodras barracks is home to 1619 cypress trees planted to represent the number of Greek Cypriots and Greeks missing due to the Turkish invasion and illegal occupation […]
The monument for the victims of the Kalamaria roundup (August 13, 1944) was created by the sculptor Ioannis Fanakidis and placed in the park of the same name on Kerasountos Street in 1983. The work is inspired by the events of August 13, 1944, when the Germans, accompanied by the Greek collaborators of Dagoulas’ infamous […]
The Monument to the Dead of World War II was created by the Thessalonian artist Kyriakos Kampadakis and placed in Skra Square in 1981. It presents a woman who has been deformed by hunger, misery, fire, and the hardship of war. It is a cry against war and its devastating consequences for humanity. Kampadakis is […]
Concern for education is a common feature of all Greek parents and occupied the refugees from the first moment of their arrival in Kalamaria. In the beginning, the need to survive and secure housing and food was pressing, so there was no possibility of a specific plan of action regarding their children’s schooling. However, once […]
Nikolaos Votsis was born on the island of Hydra in 1877. He was the great-grandson of Georgios Kountouriotis (shipowner and Prime Minister of Greece) and nephew of Pavlos Kountouriotis. After he graduated from the Naval Academy, he participated in the naval blockade of Crete in early 1897. When the First Balkan War broke out, Votsis […]
The Photography Museum “Christos Kalemkeris” was founded in 2001 as a Legal Entity under Public Law of the Municipality of Kalamaria to protect and promote the rich collection of Christos Kalemkeris. Christos Kalemkeris was born in Thessaloniki in 1930. His parents were refugees from Asia Minor, and he grew up in Kalamaria. He started working […]
The Educational Gymnastics Association “O Apollon” was founded by Pontians in 1926. The original club included mandolin, choir (male and female), soccer, track, and volleyball departments. The social welfare and support of the refugees was the preeminent concern of Apollon’s members. The association had volunteers who supplied the refugee neighbourhoods with food, medicine, and water. […]
The Historical Archive of Refugee Hellenism (HARH) began operating in 1994 as a Legal Entity under Public Law of the Municipality of Kalamaria. The primary mission of HARH is the study of the history and identity of refugee Hellenism and the preservation of the memory of the momentous event that resulted in the expulsion of […]
Olof Palme Park is located on Aretsou beach in Nea Krini. The plot of land occupied by the park once belonged to the Georgiadis family, active in the brewing industry. Villa Georgiadis was a local landmark but was eventually abandoned to its fate. Following an agreement between the family and the Municipality of Kalamaria, part […]
The bust of Stavros Karatzas in the Amisos park is the work of Evangelos Kesidis. Stavros Karatzas was a retired gendarmerie officer and the first elected mayor of Kalamaria. He was elected in 1951 with fifteen councillors and served for three consecutive terms. Kesidis’ work manages to capture the serenity and simplicity that defined Karatzas.
Giorgos or Gogos Petridis has been described as the Patriarch of the Pontic lyre. He was born in 1917 or 1918 in Fadak, a village close to Olasa in Trebizond. Petridis came to Greece in 1922 when his family was forced to leave their hometown. Unlike most refugees from Fadak who settled in Giannitsa or […]
On Sunday, February 2, 2020, with the initiative of the Historical Archive of Refugee Hellenism (IAPE) of the Municipality of Kalamaria and the Israelite Community of Thessaloniki (ICTH), the unveiling of the Memorial Column of the Jewish settlement of Campbell took place at the junction of Ethniki Antistaseos and Aristidou streets in the Votsi settlement. […]