HELBI

As Greeks head out of town for the first long break of the year to celebrate the last Carnival weekend and Lenten fast on Clean Monday with the traditional flying of kites, officialdom will gather in Parliament House today at noon for the swearing in of Karolos Papoulias as the next president of the Republic by Archbishop Christodoulos. Immediately afterward, Papoulias will go to the Presidential Palace where his predecessor, Costis Stephanopoulos, will be waiting to hand over the reins as head of state. The entire proceedings are to be televised live on NET state television and broadcast on the radio. It will be a moving moment, particularly for Stephanopoulos, who has made a particular success of his mission. There is general agreement that Stephanopoulos was a president of the people. Of the 300 trips he made during his 10 years in office, 80 were official state visits. He traveled to all corners of the globe apart from South America. And in Greece he reached the most outlying villages and islands to celebrate national holidays. As for his immediate plans, he will go straight from the Presidential Palace to Patras and Rio to spend the long weekend at his country home with his family. Later, he will return to Athens and the office he has rented in Valaoritou Street, with his secretary of 30 years, Zoe Drosou, and his personal police guard of 31 years, Costas Orlof. Yesterday he was visited by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, accompanied by Minister of State Theodoros Roussopoulos. Karamanlis handed him a personal gift of a rare collection of poems by Cavafy, «because your journey to Ithaca is not over.» «For you, perhaps, but for me it is,» replied Stephanopoulos.