On Wednesday, 17 September 2025, at 22:00 Athens time, the Voice of Greece program “Remarkable Personalities” with Stavroula Karali will welcome Mr. Achilleas Chatzikonstantinou, Board Member of the Union of Smyrniots, geologist, geographer, historian, researcher and author.
Together with Mr. George Poulimenos, Mr. Chatzikonstantinou has studied in depth the administrative, economic and social life of Smyrna before the Catastrophe. Their award-winning two-volume study “The Smyrna Quay: Tracing a Symbol of Progress and Splendour” was distinguished by the Academy of Athens with the Lykourgeion Prize.
During the program, Mr. Chatzikonstantinou will revive the memories of the city’s golden era as they were recounted to him by the last Smyrniots. He will speak about the Quay, one of the landmark projects of the 19th century, which became inseparably tied to the fate of Smyrna in both its days of brilliance and its time of tragedy. He will evoke the lives of the Smyrniots of another age: their homes, their businesses and their professions.
The guest will reveal lesser-known aspects of Smyrna’s social life, such as why the newspaper Amaltheia was once printed on pink satin, or how a house on the Quay was built with its façade facing the back street because the owner’s daughters were renowned for their beauty. He will also speak of a residence with a mother-of-pearl façade, along with other houses and buildings of Smyrna that survive to this day.
Produced and presented by Stavroula Karali
Broadcast: Wednesday, 17 September 2025, 22:00–23:00 Athens time
