LETTER FROM ATHENS

Paros, Amorgos, Koufonissia, Irakleia, Schinoussa, Naxos, Mykonos, Lesbos, Ikaria, Ios, Mylos, Crete, Karpathos. For over a year, Aris Katsigiannis, photographer and director, has been traveling the Greek islands in the middle of winter with his brother and a friend to collect testimonies from the oldest people, those who have known war, misery and Greece before the explosion of tourism. So far, the 30-something has interviewed 52 retirees, living in areas that are often difficult to access out of season, hours by boat from Athens, government offices and public services. On social media such as Instagram, where he has over 126,000 followers, his short videos are entitled “Their stories before they disappear.”

On Mykonos, the party island of the jet set, Katsigiannis met 87-year-old Irini Marti. “In Mykonos, there was poverty at the time. Now, there is a lot of luxury, villas… ,” said the octogenarian, who had to marry young to a man chosen by her father. At the age of 19, she gave birth without the presence of a doctor on the small island of the Cyclades. In Ikaria, 94-year-old Marika Moula said that she never went to school. “At the time, they would say to you: ‘What’s the point of going to school? You’re a girl, it won’t do you any good,'” she said. It was only later, with her children and her grandchildren, that she learned to write. On this island in the northern Aegean Sea, Moula admitted to having lived frugally: “Why have money? What you need in life is love. It’s the only thing that really has value,” she said to Katsigianis’ camera.

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