ANDREAS ZEPPOS
“The philanthropic fisherman from Ayvali who during the occupation distributed fish to the needy of Piraeus.”
He quickly became the first fisherman of Faliro; he made a lot of money and earned a great reputation as one of the most famous revelers; he was “listening” to everything he made every night. He used to meet at the tavern of Kaoudis in Tzitzifies, where Yannis Papaioannou sang.
He was such a good customer that Papaioannou, who was “delighted to see him”, wrote the famous song about him during the Occupation, because of which we remember him today.
After the Occupation, the intense industrialization and urbanization of the area resulted in the pollution of the waters of Faliro and fishing was no longer possible. So he was forced to return to Tourkolimano and fish offshore, but fishing there was very difficult, very tiring and not always profitable; he kept only two or three lads from his team.
But the years had passed, the captain had aged (not to mention that he was also an alcoholic) and since there were no more jobs; he could no longer continue in this job. Around 1955 he decides to work as a grocer, taking fish from the boats and returning to sell them.
His famous boat, the “Agios Efstratios”, after the bank took over, began to change hands. It was auctioned off and bought by a large family of fishermen from Perama, the Pagidaeos family, who named it “Zeppo”. At some point they decided to sell it to get a bigger one.
The boat changes ownership again. This time it is bought by fisherman Thanasis Ntantanis from Naoussa, who used to live in Paros. He kept it for several years and then sold “Zeppos” to the architect Kostas Gouzelis. He gave all his love to the boat: he rebuilt it, he put sails on it, he made it even more beautiful and kept the same name.
With this, the well-known director Giorgos Kolozis shoot the documentary series “Aegean now and forever”, in the episode “Wind in our sails”, which was successfully broadcast by ERT.