Decay and Decadence Ten years after its devastating financial crisis, the Greek capital of Athens possesses grit and grandeur in equal measure Words by ANNA HART Photos by BENJAMIN EAGLE ome cities wear their history demurely, sought-after design firms, K-Studio – I step out S accessorising daintily with a well-placed onto my balcony. My room overlooks Agia Irini, cathedral or neat museum quarter. However, a lively Byzantine-era square in which a flower history gets everywhere in Athens. The city market once surrounded the Greek Orthodox looks like it’s been dragged through a calendar church. The bars are buzzing, but I’m struck by backwards. No other European capital has styled the homeless woman selling copies of Shedia, the out the permutations of time quite like this one. Greek equivalent of the Big Issue. The shuttered shopfronts, graffiti-smeared and abandoned for a The majestic Acropolis crowns the city, a decade, stand next to a bewilderingly flamboyant flamboyant symbol for modern Athenians of cocktail bar named Noel, where peacock-feather their noble heritage as philosopher kings and wreaths and candelabras evoke a set of Versailles. the architects of Western civilisation. Yet the Acropolis is also a looming, sombre reminder of In modern-day Athens, I realise, decay and the frailty of power, the futility of ambition and the decadence are neighbours. The disparate fortunes flimsiness of security. Throughout the city, there displayed in these shopfronts are an ever-present is a corresponding juxtaposition of ancient and reminder that in late 2009, Greece was plunged contemporary, confidence and chaos, glamour and into a government debt crisis that overtook the grunge. From the moment I arrive, Athens gently US’s Great Depression as the longest recession of mocks my simplistic, linear understanding of time any advanced capitalist economy to date. In 2014, and human progress, and challenges me to look at Greece’s unemployment rate reached a harrowing life differently – as all the best cities do. high of 28 per cent, and today it remains nearly triple the 6.5 per cent EU average. Arriving into Syntagma metro station, ticket barriers and kiosks are respectfully arranged However, Athens is a city that has risen and fallen around the tomb of a woman from the fourth countless times throughout its 3,400-year history, century BCE and the remnants of ancient and perhaps this explains the city’s palpable aqueducts, an awkward surprise museum that creative energy just ten years after what the the rail construction crew never anticipated. Greeks refer to in hushed tones as “The Crisis” Athens’ more recent history spills into the streets, brought the city to her knees. Athens is the city too. I check into the Perianth Hotel, a beautifully that invented democracy and where philosophy remodelled 1930s apartment block, and from has always been in fashion, as well as a place that my hotel room – all marble, terrazzo floors and graciously shows travellers a good time, even hardwood furniture by one of Greece’s most when she’s in a state of flux. •• 90 SUITCASE MAGAZINE The cities issue 91 ATHENS, GREECE ATHENS, GREECE Although it’s unjust to Greeks struggling with community. “Here in Athens life has become unemployment and despondency to overhype difficult for many people, whether they are Greek, Athens’ economic recovery, it’s fair to say that came from abroad a long time ago or not long ago, the city is experiencing a cultural, culinary or if Greece is just part of a bigger journey for and entrepreneurial resurgence. In Klimataria them,” says Emma Raibaut, a 25-year-old librarian Taverna, one of its most famed traditional who moved from France to Athens in 2015. “I People are tavernas, I meet Stella Tsikrika of This is Athens, interned here because books offer universal help.” angry, they have a combined municipal and touristic initiative to “ support entrepreneurship and promote the city Next door in Choros, an arts collective advocating a lot they want to express and as a destination rather than a fleeting stopover for accessible art and cooperative forms of for island-bound tourists. Tsikrika explains that expression, I talk to Christos Papamichael, process. In Greece, during the 1980s Plateia Theatrou pulsated with founder of Liminal Access, Athens’ only fully this has always yuppie-crammed bars and theatres, but became wheelchair-accessible theatre rehearsal space. “In been the purpose “ rapidly rundown following the crash. She tells me Athens last year there were over 1,000 premieres of theatre and about a current programme offering six-month – that is, completely new theatre productions,” he the arts leases in previously derelict units in the square to says as he brews us coffee at the back of Choros, start-ups and established businesses, charitable which doubles as a yoga studio when it’s not EVI GRINTELA organisations and art foundations. being used for rehearsals. Asked what’s driving this cultural thrust, he smiles. “People are angry, One beneficiary is We Need Books, a multilingual they have a lot they want to express and process,” Papamichael explains that Choros is unlikely to building just north of Syntagma Square. Grintela library tucked into an attic space that used to be he explains. “In Greece, this has always been the remain in its current Plateia Theatrou location. worked in fashion editorial for over 20 years Athens’ flashiest nightclub. We Need Books hopes purpose of theatre and the arts.” The vibrancy of Its six months are up, and, having helped revive before the crisis effectively wiped out the Greek to boost literacy rates among local residents, the arts – and accessible arts – scene in Athens all the area, Choros might be priced out as a result of fashion press. “When I launched the line four chiefly the migrant Bangladeshi and Pakistani sounds wonderfully promising, but as we depart, ongoing gentrification and rising rents. years ago, everyone told me I was crazy to go into dress manufacturing, but I had to find something Five years ago, a studio flat in central Athens could else to do,” she says. “Plus, Athenian fashion tastes be rented for as little as €220 a month; today it’s changed as a result of the crisis too – we’re no more like €400, a steep hike when the monthly longer interested in fast fashion, but in beautiful salary of the average bar or restaurant worker investment pieces made to last.” is just €600 to €700. Yet compared to Paris or Berlin, Athens remains an affordable, relaxed Greek fashion designers are having something of and bohemian haven for artists and musicians; a an international moment right now. Zeus+Dione place where young entrepreneurs can afford their resort wear is also stocked on Net-a-Porter, and dreams and where migrants can make ends meet. Athens-born Mary Katrantzou’s parents were big- Today, as well as drawing an international creative hitters in the city’s design and textile spheres. “The crowd, Athens is luring back young Athenians who Athenian fashion scene is incredibly diverse, with fled after the crash and who now bring expertise, luxe Hellenic-inspired labels such as Zeus+Dione creativity and entrepreneurial chops with them. stocked at i-D Concept Stores on Kanari Street, but also sustainable organic cotton one-offs at Heel Kalomira Papageorgiou was a teacher in her 20s Athens Lab,” comments Elisabeth Bargue, who when she decided to found Prigipo, a popular designs the shopping tours for Alternative Athens. Athenian jewellery line. Today she employs 15 “What unites it all is a rejection of fast fashion.” people at its workshop in Thiseos Street. “The crisis allowed me to take a creative risk, because Food, as well as fashion, serves as a reliable when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose,” barometer of social trends and economic she shrugs. “You might as well follow your dream.” fluctuations in a city. Eating and drinking our I also visit Evi Grintela, whose cult shirt dresses way around Athens, we savour ancient Ottoman are stocked in Matches, Bergdorf Goodman flavours as well as modern Bangladeshi, Pakistani KALOMIRA PAPAGEORGIOU PRIGIPO and Net-a-Porter, at her atelier in an apartment and Albanian influences – a testament to Greece’s •• 92 93 ATHENS, GREECE ATHENS, GREECE welcoming attitude towards migrants over the start-up launched in 2011, has also vanquished years. At the forefront of Athens’ fine-dining Uber as the ride-sharing taxi app of choice – scene is Feedel Urban Gastronomy while the download it before you arrive. newest hotspot is Ergon, which pairs a Californian wholefoods concept-store vibe with organic Much of Athens, however, is navigable on foot PLAKA Greek ingredients. Athens is also home to a and it’s a joy to stumble upon ancient remnants thoroughly bougie bar scene, with venues such as scattered throughout this 20th-century city. The Clumsies and Baba Au Rum topping various Famously one of the world’s oldest cities, Athens is “world’s best bars” lists. among the youngest European capitals. It was only in 1834, following the Greek War of Independence, Wine, however, is a relatively new obsession for that Athens – then a farming town of some 4,000 young Greeks, who tend to sip Jameson whiskey, residents – was chosen as the capital of the newly imported beers or raki, the potent local spirit. In independent Greek state. London and Paris were Tanini Agapi Mou, a new natural-wine bar in the capital cities from the 12th century onwards, so bohemian neighbourhood of Exarcheia with over Athens had some catching up to do. In the 1830s 150 wines by Greek producers, the moustachioed two young architects fresh from studying in owner Stergios Tekeridis painstakingly decants Berlin – Gustav Eduard Schaubert and Stamatis Santorini Assyrtiko and Neméa Agiorgitiko from Kleanthis – produced a topographical plan of measuring cylinders into wine glasses for us.