Will the port of Piraeus get a nautical museum?
The Piraeus port area could be a grand nautical center were it not for the fact that it does not have a decent nautical museum. Other countries with less of a nautical tradition – such as France, Italy, Ukraine or Russia – have succeeded in setting up impressive displays that map the course of their nautical history. In Greece, though – a country where shipping is its greatest and most prestigious industry and which is among the leaders of the international maritime community – the State has rejected, without a hint of explanation, an offer by shipowner Grigoris Kallimanopoulos to set up a nautical museum in one of Piraeus’s most attractive neoclassical buildings. Kallimanopoulos extended his offer to the State last January, requesting that his building be used as the museum premises, as a place that would aspire to top international standards. According to the shipowner, he wrote a letter to the Merchant Marine Ministry explaining that the neoclassical building on the corner of Akti Miaouli and Filonos Street could become an exhibition center both for his own private collection of nautical objects and the State’s collection. He also suggested setting up a fund to cover all of the museum’s operational expenses. It seemed to be going well for Kallimanopoulos; the Merchant Marine Ministry referred him to the Ministry of Culture where the proposal was met with much enthusiasm. Original optimism was so great that Kallimanopoulos was offered a partial grant from a community package to restore the building’s facade. «I would like to stress that I asked for nothing,» explained Kallimanopoulos in a recent interview. «From that moment on, though I frequently tried to make appointments with the authorities, I was cold-shouldered. At one point, they referred me to someone at the Port Authority who at first told me that the ministry was still reviewing the issue, and then simply disappeared.» After waiting three months to receive an answer from the Merchant Marine Ministry, to no avail, Kallimanopoulos wrote another letter withdrawing his offer. The ministry now claims that it stands behind the proposal but that the issue is entirely in the hands of the Ministry of Culture. Neither ministry has contacted Kallimanopoulos, though. However, a Presidential Decree has been passed regarding the establishment of a nautical museum, but a previous report by Kathimerini revealed that certain political and private interests took advantage of the confusion between the ministries to set up a nautical museum of a much lower standard which displays likenesses of original objects. This «museum» has not been approved by current Merchant Marine Minister Giorgos Anomeritis, who has demanded that it be removed from the area of the Piraeus port. Be this as it may, it seems that Kallimanopoulos’s offer has been sidelined at the expense of shady partisan politics. In Greece, shipowners are behind many of the country’s finest museums, including the Museum of Cycladic and Ancient Greek Art, the Basil and Elise Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art on Andros and the Natural History Museum, among others.
