Feature Stories - Main
Painting the Tower Brown |
The
Thessaloniki-based Greek technical firm STELMA S.A. has won an international tender
for the project
of painting the Eiffel Tower, to mark the Tower's 120th anniversary, which is being celebrated
in France from March 31 to the end of 2009.
This will be the 19th repainting of the Eiffel Tower, and STELMA founder and president Eleftherios Mamatzis and his son, company vice president Dimitris Mamatzis, expressed their joy at being assigned the prestigious project, calling it "a life's dream".
Painting the Eiffel Tower - one of the world's iconic structures - may be the ultimate coating job: 60 tons of paint are necessary to cover the Tower's surface, as well as 50 kilometers of security cords, 1500 brushes…and more than a year for a team of 25 painters to paint the Tower from top to bottom.
The Tower has changed colour several times, passing from red-brown to yellow-ochre, then to chestnut brown and finally to the bronze of today (officially known as Tour Eiffel Brown), slightly shaded off towards the top to ensure that the colour is perceived to be the same all the way up as it stands against the Paris sky.
Greek
Stelma S.A. to paint Eiffel Tower for 120th
'birthday' (ANA/emportal.rs, 07.05.2009) Painting
the Eiffel Tower (tour-eiffel.fr)
How to outlive your doctor (edition.cnn.com, 21.04.09) |
People
on the Greek island of Ikaria live longer than in just about any other
place in the world. A recent study of 90-year-old siblings, conducted by the National
Hellenic Research Foundation, discovered 10 times more 90-year-old brothers and sisters
there than the European average
In 1970, when doctors diagnosed Greek-American Yiannis Karimalis with stomach cancer and only gave him a few months to live, he decided to move back to Ikaria, his birth island. There, he reasoned, he could be buried inexpensively among his fellow Greeks. But when he moved back to the island not only did he not die, he lived nearly 40 years more. And when he returned to America on a recent visit, he discovered that his doctors were all dead.
“Do these people possess the true secret to longevity? We're not sure yet, but we'll certainly distill a few clues about living longer, better”, writes Dan Buettner in his commentary for the CNN, while "The Blue Zones" expedition he’s leading - a team of the world's best demographers, physicians, medical researchers and media specialists- explores Ikarian longevity. Read more...
The island where people live longer (NPR,
02.05.09)Sibley class follow Blue Zones founder’s
expedition to Icaria, Greece (Albert Lea Tribune, 05.05.09)
Greece - a modern country with ancient legacy |
On
the occasion of Greek Independence Day, on Wednesday, March 25,a supplement on Greece
has been published by the Romanian English language daily “Nine o’ clock”.
Among other things, the supplement focuses on foreign policy (interview with Greek Foreign Minister, Dora Bakogiannis) , economy (interview with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis), and the New Acropolis Museum (article by the Director of the 1st Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Alexandros Mantis). Read the whole supplement here
Read selected articles below:
Romania - traditional friend,
valuable economic and trade partner for Greece, F.M. Dora BakogiannisWe
consider Romania a strategic market with enormous perspectives- Deputy Min. of Foreign Affairs, Miltiadis
VarvitsiotisAcropolis - the
most accurate reflection of the splendor, power and wealth of Athens at its greatest peak
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Acropolis - the oldest landmark to join Earth Hour |
On
Saturday, March 28, the Acropolis will
be the world’s oldest landmark to turn off the lights for Earth
Hour, at 8:30PM local time, and join the global movement against climate change.
"Great sites remind us of a time when humankind made a great leap forward towards a brighter and better future. Earth Hour provides an opportunity to reconnect us to this sense of optimism and foresight as we stand at another critical juncture in human history, which is how we respond to climate change” said Earth Hour Executive Director, Andy Ridley.
The City of Athens will play a leading part in the international "Earth Hour" initiative by switching off the lights on Lycabettus Hill, at Athens City Hall on Kotzia Square and in tens of municipal buildings throughout the city.
“We are thrilled to see such an amazing response from Greek cities and citizens. As a part of a global community, Greece stands ready to sends its message on climate change, loud and clear.” said Demetres Karavellas CEO of WWF Greece.
See also:
WWF, Acropolis becomes oldest
landmark to join Earth Hour Vote
Earth! Sign Up For Earth Hour
2009 (GreekNewsAgenda, 20.03.09)
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How an art-loving chauffeur saved Russian revolution in paintings (standard.co.uk, 10.02.09 ) |
Masterpieces
from the famous Costakis Collection, which is housed at the
State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece and includes
dozens of Russian Constructivism works saved from obscurity, are presented
in Tate Modern, in the “Rodchenko And Popova:
Defining Constructivism” exhibition.
George Costakis, who was born in Russia before the revolution to Greek parents, discovered his first Constructivist paintings in a Moscow studio in 1946. He began collecting them when the Soviet Union and the museums in the rest of the world were not interested.
"The avant-garde works cost nothing when he started to collect them but he knew he was discovering something unique and unknown for the world" said Costakis’ daughter Aliki.
Aleksandr Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova were two of the most important Russian avant-garde artists.
The exhibition will run until 17 May. Read more…
LIFE Photo Archive on Google: Greece
So far, Google and Life have digitized about 20% of Life's vast catalog of images. Google says the effort, which includes some 10 million images, will take several more months to complete. The catalogue includes a wide array of pictures from Greece, taken mostly from 1948 to 1968. Going though the collection is an amazing journey into Modern Greek history, as extensive Greek picture portfolios showcase themes like Civil War in Greece (1948), Greek Children (1950) and Greek Tourist Story (early 60’s).
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Through a new collaboration with Google many of the iconic images captured by Life magazine are now available through Google's Image Search function, at
The Archimedes Palimpsest Project: Digital Palimpsest Now on the Web
Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) is one of the greatest scientists of all times, yet many of his writings were lost. Fortunately, a Greek original, namely the Archimedes Palimpsest, has recently been discovered. The manuscript was written in the 10th century. In the 13th century, it was taken apart, and the Archimedes text was scraped off. In 1906, the undertext was recognized by J. L. Heiberg, professor of classics, as containing previously unknown works by Archimedes. The "Archimedes Codex" which was recently published in English and German contains seven of the Greek mathematician's treatises. Most importantly, it is the only surviving copy of On Floating Bodies in the original Greek, and the unique source for the Method of Mechanical Theorems and the ancient puzzle Stomachion.
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After ten years of work, involving the expertise and goodwill of an extraordinary number of people working around the globe, the
Greek Postmen win oddest book title prize (The Guardian, 05.09.2008)
The book, a comprehensive record of Greece's postal routes, was published in 1994 by the Greek Hellenic Philatelic Society of Great Britain, which "exists to encourage the collection of Greek stamps and to promote their study". The author, Derek Willan, says that the book is of interest to Greek philatelists and the title purely describes what's in it. The Diagram prize is organized by The Bookseller magazine, whose readers vote for the oddest book title. Read more… Read also:
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"Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers", a book on the lonely roads of Greek postmen, won the Britain's Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the past 30 years.
The Greeks and the Chinese: Doing business for aeons (Economist, 21.08.08)
Quite a few Greek shipowners have become billionaires since 2004 thanks to the “China trade”; a big Chinese state-owned shipping company will build and operate a new container terminal at the port of Piraeus; 30,000 or so Chinese live in Greece, many of whom operate retailers and so on. Read more… |
Starting from the fact that 2008 is “Hellenic Year in China”, this article in the Economist explores the link between the Greeks and the Chinese, who have always known the meaning of diaspora. It turns out that the two peoples are interacting in many ways.
Greek tragedies offer modern lessons on war's pain (AP, 15.08.08)
The wounds exposed in this reading of ancient Greek tragedies date back millennia, but the translated words still speak to Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans and the doctors and therapists who treat them. Read more…
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"Theater of War," a performance of Sophocles' "Ajax" and "Philoctetes," was part of a three-day combat stress control conference hosted by the Marine Corps that addresses post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression brought on by combat.Greek Comic Book Artist Lands Last Call Movie Deal (Wired Blog Network, 18.06.08)
Now Lolos is getting his shot at the big screen. Universal decided to develop The Last Call as a movie, under the auspices of producer Barry Josephson (Wild Wild West, TV's Bones). Read More …
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Writer/illustrator Vasilis Lolos hails from Athens, Greece where the majority of his work has been published. Lolos broke into American comics working with Rick Spears on Pirates Of Coney Island. Along with various mini comics, Vasilis has started his own graphic novel series at Oni Press called The Last Call.Charles Moskos, 74; Created the U.S. Military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (Washington Post, 04.06.2008)
He was best known as the man who forged the compromise that governs the conduct of homosexual service members, known as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, signed into law during the early months of the Clinton administration. Charles Constantine Moskos was born in Chicago to Greek immigrants. His Greek heritage was important to him; he wrote "Greek Americans: Struggle and Success" (1989) and "New Directions in Greek American Studies," the latter with Dan Georgakas (1991). Read more... |
Charles C. Moskos, 74, a leading sociology professor at Northwestern University and the author of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, died on May 31. Dr. Moskos, described as the nation's "most influential military sociologist" by the Wall Street Journal, studied the U.S. military and wrote extensively on military issues, including racial integration in the armed services and women in combat.
"Grease to Greece" motor rally
The challenge for participants is to "Fat-Find" their way from the UK to the Mediterranean without fossil fuels, and an award awaits those that make it without resorting to filling stations. The real point of the trip -- other than to "have a bit of a laugh" -- is to find out if using waste vegetable oil is practical for long distances. Read more about this story: |
Chip fat and cooking oil will fuel an environmentally friendly "Grease to Greece" motor rally this summer. Londoner Andy Pag will head a team of 30 cars travelling to the Mediterranean shores powered only by chip fat and cooking oil.
Diversity grows in downtown Athens stores (E-Kathimerini - 17.04.2008)
These are just a few examples of the ethnic diversity to be found in small Athenian stores these days. Indian and Pakistani restaurants, Ukrainian fast-food outlets and Pakistani grocery shops not only cater to immigrants nostalgic for home fare but also tourists and Greeks in search of different flavors, or a bargain. Read more... |
There are hundreds of multiethnic shopping and eating options in the capital: a Georgian cafe near Omonia; an all-purpose store selling Russian products including vodka and caviar; 5-euro haircuts on Voulgari Street; cheap clothing from China on Aristotelous Street; and a call center and photo shop, also on Voulgari Street.
A town called Greece
The official flag of the Town of Greece depicts a circle, which represents the shield of the warriors of the Ancient Greece and the colors - terra cotta, golden yellow and black - are those used in old Greek pottery and artistic decorations. All the post-elementary schools have Classical Greek names: Arcadia, Athena, Apollo, Odyssey Academy, and Olympia. |
Greece is a town in Monroe County, New York, United States, with a population of approximately 95,000. Originally called Northampton, the Town of Greece was established on March 22, 1822. Its name was chosen because of the current wave of sympathy toward the Greeks who were then fighting their
Aboriginal dancers Zorba troupe dreaming of Greece
The Chooky Dancers, from Elcho Island off Arnhem Land, Australia first decided to beef up their performance of indigenous dance at a festival in the Northern Territory. A video of the Zorba-goes-indigenous act was posted on the web. Since then, the Chooky Dancers have had 700,000 hits on the video-sharing site, YouTube. Read more about this story: |
The group of Aboriginal dancers whose version of the Zorba dance became a hit video on the internet has been invited to Greece.
Europeans pick Greek sculptor's new euro coin design
Read more about this story: |
The design submitted by the Bank of Greece mint, the work of sculptor
Architect Renzo Piano to build new Opera House and National Library
The project will be funded with an endowment from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and upon completion, it will be handed over to the Greek state. Read world media reports on this story: |
The vibrant Central Market of Athens
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More than 30,000 people mingle everyday at
An Antique Store keeping alive the memory of Greece in Hell's Kitchen
In the course of harvesting his merchandise from estate sales throughout the city and beyond, Mr. Dimitriou has gathered some of the relics that make up the shop’s permanent Greek collection, now concentrated in a tiny back room. It is a sort of a miniature museum of Greek history, with a metal ashtray engraved with a map of Cyprus, a decorative tile showing a boy and girl in festive shepherd garb, and a 19th-century Bible in ancient Greek.
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As Saki Knafo reports for the New York Times, in the 1940s and ’50s, the streets of Hell’s Kitchen were sprinkled with Greek businesses, so much so that the neighborhood’s newsstands carried no fewer than three Greek-American dailies. Today, about all that remains of Manhattan’s Hellenic outpost is a spanakopita bakery, a restaurant, a grocery and a little collection of Greek books and artifacts in a dusty antique store at Ninth Avenue and West 43rd Street.
Learning about Greece
The second-graders at Deer Creek Rose Union Elementary in Oklahoma, US, spent last week learning about Greece and will finish up their 'Greek Week' with "informances". As Amy Thomas, music teacher explains "We like to call it informance instead of performance because we’re informing the crowd about what we’ve learned".
The unit about Greece is part of the second-grade’s core knowledge curriculum and each second-grade class learned songs about different Greek topics, including the Trojan War, the Greek alphabet and Greek gods. The students played the first Olympic games in physical education and made pictures of amphora, Greek vases, in art class. They also made Medusa headbands and Olympic torches, talked about the Olympic Oath and acted out Aesop Fables in class.
- See the Edmond Sun article "Students to ‘inform’ audience about Greece"
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