MARGARITA POURNARA

New book takes crack at Antikythera Mechanism

It was the morning of May 18, 1902, when Kythera MP Spyridon Stais visited the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, going straight to the hall containing the finds from an ancient wreck off Antikythera.

College Year in Athens celebrates 60 years

Remembering the centenary of the Asia Minor Campaign, let us not only look at what we lost, but what the refugees offered to Greece.

15.07.2022 / 17:40

New photo archive on Santorini

Over the last decade, a team of volunteers has been putting together an archive aimed at preserving, recording and digitizing the cultural heritage of the popular Cycladic island of Santorini.

30.06.2022 / 10:59

A rock concert for the Parthenon Marbles

“Athens, I love you!” songwriter and performer Desmond Child shouted from the stage of the Herod Atticus Theater on Monday night to a packed house that was there to hear his iconic tunes.

09.06.2022 / 15:27

The return of a Mycenaean treasure

I imagine a Mycenaean craftsman in the ancient city of Ialysus on Rhodes in 1200 BC, bent over his anvil with tools of bronze and ivory trying to etch two sphinxes on the tiny surface of a gold seal ring.

07.06.2022 / 19:07

It’s cool to be Greek, officially

“Omaha, Nebraska is a long way from Athens so we can sit at the same table,” Alexander Payne quips when he appears on my computer screen for an interview that had originally been planned when he was in Athens over the Easter holidays.

14.05.2022 / 10:00

Inspiring new generations with tradition

“He looks absolutely Cretan; like he’s come down from Mount Psiloritis, but without the hard edges. He’s really sweet,” fellow journalist Katerina Daskalaki, the faithful secretary of the board of the Lyceum Club of Greek Women, tells me as she describes Lefteris Drandakis.

06.05.2022 / 03:38

Greek Independence Day parade in Boston draws crowd after Covid-enforced hiatus

The parade marking Greek Independence Day in the United States is a matter of great significance for Greek Americans, and not just because of its emotional resonance, but mainly because it symbolizes national unity.

05.02.2022 / 12:18

Event in Paris marks 200 years since Greek War of Independence

It must have been riveting to witness prominent French actress Fanny Ardant, in the crowded Grand Amphitheater (Richelieu) at the Sorbonne University, reading excerpts from the epic poem “The Free Besieged” by Dionysios Solomos and reciting “The Greek Boy” by Victor Hugo – a poem dedicated by the great French writer to the Chios massacre in 1822.

18.01.2022 / 23:42

Alekos Fassianos (1935-2022): The voice of past and present

I was relatively new at Kathimerini when I interviewed Alekos Fassianos for the first time, at his home, in the late 1990s. The entrance was like some magical gateway into a universe designed entirely by him.

04.11.2021 / 22:03

Young people will save the planet, says activist

The day that the massive wildfire started in Varybobi, north of Athens, in early August, Marios Giannakou was on an expedition to the Arctic Circle, exploring Norway’s fjords in a sailing boat.

27.10.2021 / 16:05

Diplomacy depends upon team spirit

Meeting diplomat Alexander Philon for the first time, one is immediately struck by the fact that his career suits his personality down to a tee.

06.10.2021 / 20:15

Pottery from a bygone city and era

Imagine yourself at 2.30 p.m. on July 4, 1921, in Kutahya, Turkey. What would you see?

05.09.2021 / 16:34

Sikinos to unveil spruced-up historical church

A tiny blue-tailed salamander darted along the cobbles on the path to the ruins of the Episkopi Church on Sikinos, undaunted by our presence.

06.08.2021 / 21:15

Island of Hydra pays tribute to a ‘crazy,’ intrepid aviator

Language is so often an expression of the collective memory, yet few Greeks know that the term “trelokambero,” used to describe someone behaving irrationally or acting crazy (“trelos”), was actually inspired by a real person, an intrepid Greek aviator.