 Metamorphosis in Athens
Diary and photos essay
By Cyrus Kadivar
June 24, 2004
iranian.com
There are four hills on the Athenian skyline and
our hotel, the famous St. George Lycabettus, nestled at the foot
of one of them.
It was springtime in Athens. On that Good Friday, as our yellow
taxi made its way up the verdant hill winding through the fashionable
streets of Kolonaki, I tried to catch a glimpse of the heavily
scented orange trees hiding the designer French boutiques and
chic restaurants. >>> See photos
The sun had begun to fall into the sea by the time
we reached the hotel. As my wife and I strode into the black marbled
lobby we
were dreaming of our room which our London travel agent had promised
came with a spectacular view of the Acropolis.
In the space between the reception desk, staffed
by two attractive, but slightly bored, female staff, and the abandoned
bureau de change,
stood a familiar painting of a knight seated on a white horse slaying
a green dragon with his lance.
If life has taught me anything it is that sometimes
the best of plans can go awry with your fate hanging in the balance.
That evening
we discovered that our room was the one on the left of the reception
desk. Not only did we not have a view of the Parthenon but our
window overlooked a tall, blank wall. Our faces must have assumed
the expression found on those masks used in a 5th century B.C.
Greek tragedy.
The Gods must have pitied us for our disappointment
was short-lived. Chris, our friendly Greek porter, assured me repeatedly
in broken
English that if we could be patient he would arrange that we be
transferred the next day to Room 506. "The best in all of
Athens with a view of the Acropolis from your bed," he promised.
That night we dined at Frame, a casual yet elegant
and trendy restaurant situated in the hotel's basement. The '70s retro-style
décor, designed by Angelos Angelopoulos, was colourful but
simple, featuring bar stools and tables set with designer cultlery
and multi-coloured serving plates. Reclining on a cushioned sofa
we selected rose-tinted bread rolls and struggled to read the menu
in the dim light.
A handsome couple sat at the bar sipping their cocktails
and listening to Smooth groves and Conga beats. The young waitress
seemed proud
of her black T-shirt with its motto, "Eating makes me happy",
written on her back, as she poured crystal water into our glasses
before serving our meal: chicken sprinkled with herbs and bathed
in olive oil. Dionysos would have surly approved of the excellent
wine from the Peloponnese where the grapes ripen in the warm sunshine.
I was standing the following morning on a raised
terrace near the hotel's entrance talking to Chris. My wife had, shortly after
a generous breakfast, abandoned me to have her hair made. So as
I threw a distant look towards the tiny view of the Acropolis with
its broken temples, Chris explained to me how Athens' hotels
were undergoing a frenzy of restoration in preparation for the
2004 Olympics.
Inevitably we chatted about the forthcoming Olympics.
The average Athenian was fed up with all the bad press they were
receiving:
delays in construction projects, lax security precautions and the
threat of terrorism from Al Qaeda. Few mentioned the good things,
like the new international airport and the shiny highway.
The dynamic female mayor of Athens was devoted to
make the Olympics an outstanding success with or without a roof
over the swimming
pool and the discovery of more historic relics in the area. Chris
was not alone when he said: "We will be ready for the Games." In
a typical dose of Greek optimism he added that the Herculean works
would be finished one day before the event, "because the
world will be watching."
Chris had been working at the hotel for almost twenty
years. He owned a house in the farthest corner of the Peloponnese.
It was
his last day and he was looking forward to spending Easter with
his wife. He told me that we had chosen a quiet time to visit Athens
since most of the capital's inhabitants had fled to the nearby
villages and islands.
When he learned of my Iranian background we immediately
spoke of the ancient heritage that linked Persia and Greece. There
was an
immediate sense of mutual pride as we compared notes about the
historic battles fought at Marathon and Salamis. Every Greek child
is taught how their ancestors defeated the fearsome "barbarians
of the east" and in theory determined the fate of Western
Democracy.
For a Persian this period of history is but a simple
footnote in the tale of one of the greatest empires the world has
ever known,
one that stretched from the Bosphorus to the Punjab, from Egypt
to Georgia in Caucasia, embracing the best part of what maps today
term the Middle East.
And still, I could not help feeling overwhelmed
by the explicit knowledge that Western civilisation was descended
from the battle fought on the plains of Marathon (22 miles from
Athens) between 9,000 citizens of the Greek City states and the
30,000-strong Persian army of Darius. Our modern history was perhaps a little similar
and widely different. Both Iran and Greece had despite their glorious
histories been
overrun by foreigners but had always retained a very strong sense
of cultural identity. Both had been former monarchies.
I had no intention of explaining the circumstances
that had led to the disappearance of 25 centuries of Iranian kingship
in the
Khomeini led 1979 revolution. However, I was curious to know how
Chris had felt about the 1967 coup led by the Colonels who had
forced King Constantine II, son of Paul I, into exile.
"They were terrible times," he told me. "I was
a young man but I remember the tanks rolling down the streets,
firing on
people. I had to hide inside a building until the shooting had
died down. Many people were arrested, tortured and often disappeared."
In his marvellous book, "The Greeks", James Pettifer,
noted that on 21 April 1967, when tanks rolled into Athens, "democracy
was snuffed out." Ironically, the official position of the
Greek monarchy remained unchanged during the rest of the junta's
regime in that the King was allowed to return if he wanted. But
ex-King Constantine, whom I saw a few years ago sitting alone in
London's Claridge's with a Harrod's shopping
bag at his feet, refused to come back, preferring exile until the
restoration of constitutional government. But the junta lasted
longer than the King expected.
Many Greeks today view ex-King Constantine (a close
friend of the deposed Iranian royal family) with nostalgic sympathy
or write
him off as irrelevant, or at best another "Citizen." Some
older people blame a series of disastrous misjudgements by the
King's supporters, especially those in the navy, during the
first six months of the colonels' rule for weakening the
institution of monarchy and its chances.
After an abortive naval mutiny in May 1973, the
junta leader, Papadopoulos, declared that Constantine was deposed
and he proclaimed the establishment
of a "presidential parliamentary republic." This was
ratified in a bogus plebiscite in which Papadopoulos became the
virtual dictator of Greece. Sadly, when the junta were driven from
power, organized support for the King had been almost completely
destroyed.
As Chis explained to me, even in the Peloponnese,
which had always been a royalist region, "there were many monarchists
but
no organized political party to campaign for the King." In
the referendum on the future of the monarchy in December 1974,
69 percent voted for a republic. But in 2004, Athenian democracy
appeared unshakeable and Greece a serious member of the European
Union.
The reappearance of my wife ended the history lesson,
plunging our discussion to more practical subjects. "And when will
we have our room?" I asked. "This afternoon," Chris
said. "I will make sure that your luggage is transferred.
You will have your view." We bade our saviour a Happy Easter
and headed downhill towards Iraklitou Street.
Spring is indeed a great time to visit the city
that gave birth to Socrates, Pericles and Sofka Zinovieff's recent
novel, "Eurydice
Street." At 23 degrees centigrade the temperature was balmy,
and the orange trees that line every street were blossoming and
smelling sweet. There was no hint of the dreaded traffic and pollution.
"I'm going shopping," my darling wife exclaimed
as her eyes feasted on the smart shops. It was a deal. We always
give
each other a day off on our holidays and with a kiss we darted
in separate directions promising to rendezvous later at the hotel.
I had not expected such a rewarding walk. In the
bright sunshine my eyes could hardly make out the once-graceful
neo-classical mansions
rubbing shoulders with blocks of soot-coated buildings that lured
me into thinking I was walking in downtown Shiraz.
On Kanari street I came across a lovely building
that housed a cinema museum and an outdoor café in its courtyard.
Creamy leather sofas and tables tucked under giant palms provided
an ideal
spot to enjoy a cup of Greek coffee washed down with a glass of
water. The place was almost deserted except for an elderly Athenian
lady in a fur-lined coat and her blonde daughter in a white flowery
dress.
I once read that the best way to appreciate this
magical city was by not trying to look for it in a conscious way.
One had to get
lost in both a physical and psychological sense. "Athens," wrote
Pettifer, "is a great humane city with an almost infinite
capacity to make the visitor feel at home and an equal facility
to renew mind and spirit."
These words lingered even as I continued down Vassilissis
Sofias, a long avenue housing the Cycladic and Benaki museums as
well as
a number of foreign embassies. At the gates of the Egyptian embassy
(a former residence of King Fuad of Egypt) I caught a glimpse of
a fat cat frolicking in the small manicured garden. Behind me an
impressive and intimidating collection of stray dogs, probably
nine or ten, greeted me with bored expressions as they dozed in
the midday sun.
At Syntagma Square, crowned by Greece's Parliament
building, a bustling scene of yellow taxis shattered the peace.
To my left
a few European tourists had gathered in a semi-circle to witness
the tall handsome guards as they performed their slow, high-kick
performance at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. For some the sight
of the serious-looking soldiers in short puffy skirts, red tasselled
caps, and pompom-bedecked clogs was truly amazing. There was nothing
funny about their uniforms, worn since Greek independence from
the Turks. But for me the real highlight of the day was the discovery
of the Grande Bretagne, a magnificent hotel with a story.
In the blinding sun amidst the honking traffic,
dusty scaffolding and with half of Athens under construction in
preparation for the
Olympics, the Grande Bretagne presents a charming sight. The stucco
exterior with its gold trimmings and stone winged lions provides
a hint of the brilliance inside. A world of exquisite luxury, recreating
a sort of turn-of-the-19th century opulence greeted me. In the
polished lobby an American woman sat on a sofa gaping at the enormous
chandeliers and mirrors.
Originally built by Theophilus Hansen, the initial
Dimitriou Mansion has undergone a series of face lifts. Here at
"GB" the
details are overwhelmingly pleasing. Antique furnishings, hand-carved
architectural splendour, Doric-style columns, Bavarian and Swiss
aesthetics combine to produce a serene environment.
There is a sense of history at every corner of this
luxurious hotel. During the Second World War it served as the headquarters
of the
Greek political and military authorities before being captured
by the Nazi high command. Even as 100,000 Athenians died of starvation
the Grande Bretagne remained a centre of opulence.
In 1944, after the liberation of the city, Winston
Churchill and Anthony Eden made a surprise stop on Christmas Eve.
In the post-war
period the hotel was to welcome crowned kings and princes, Heads
of State, Prime Ministers and government dignitaries, cold war
spies, business tycoons, prominent names in Literature and the
Arts, renowned journalists, well-known theatre actors and film
stars.
These days the fabulous roof restaurant and cool
pool overlooking the eternal city along with the grand rooms are
the haunts of the
glamorous cosmopolitans who celebrate the pleasures of the flesh
and the living in the shadow of the Gods.
My modest appearance in the stunning Winter Garden
was received with the alluring smiles of two slim attendants sublime
in their
black dresses that hid their shapely figures. With their disarming,
enchanting and subtle beauty they flanked me and gracefully placed
a spell on me. I followed them to the Alexander Bar where I ordered
a Greek Coffee brought to me on a small tray and poured into a
tiny cup.
Engrossed in my newspaper I came across a story
about an excavation project near Mt. Athos where archaeologists
have been searching
for the remains of the Persian Armada sent by Xerxes to crush the
Athenians but which was defeated at Salamis in 480 B.C. inspiring
Lord Byron's famous poem. Leaving the bar I braved the noisy
streets passing the Temple of Zeus and the Theatre of Dionysus
where entries such as Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Aeschylus's
The Persians premiered.
Above me, the remains of the Parthenon, caught my
attention. It was not yet time to visit this site. So, instead
I wandered through
a narrow street leading me to Plaka. Sprawling at the foot of the
Acropolis, Plaka is a charming labyrinth of tavernas, cafes, workshops
and markets. In the main streets flower-filled corners lured me
further into Athens' oldest and prettiest neighbourhood with
its stone-paved alleys.
In one of these twisted alleys I came across a Russian
woman sitting on a chair reading a book and teasing two lovely
kittens. Last
Easter I lost my beloved cat Pishi, a black tabby with green eyes.
Now the sight of these little creatures jumping in the air as they
tried to catch a fake spider dangling from a string attached to
a long stick filled me with joy. I decided to call the black kitten
Alpha and the blue-grey one Beta.
On Philellinon Street I marvelled at the Russian
Orthodox Church of Aghia Triada and viewed the yellow flag with
its double-headed
Eagle. All around me tourists in sandles made their way to Adrianou
Street with its active souvenir shops and restaurants.
I returned to the hotel, tired and elated. In Room
506 my wife greeted me with a look of suspicion. "And where were
you
all day?" she exclaimed. Then before I could answer she kissed
me and invited me to the balcony where she showed me the view.
The sight of Athens baking in a white splash of
light against a blue sky and the flat coastline and hills was breathtaking.
That
evening we returned to Plaka for dinner at Adrianos. Music and
laughter filled the air. Here and there people walked with candles,
making their way through the alleys towards the many Byzantine
churches to assist in the elaborate ceremonies. It took a while
before we found a taxi.
On the mad race to our hotel our driver switched
on a small television above the dashboard in order to watch a film
on the crucifixion
of Christ. Holding my wife's hand in the back seat of our
taxi we were all too aware of the surrealism of the situation.
We flinched at the horrible scenes of the cruel Roman soldiers
hammering the nails. Thus we headed towards the Lycabettus hill.
Back at the hotel we rushed to the balcony and watched the sky
erupt with fireworks just before midnight.
Sunday dawned quietly, except for the distant sound
of barking dogs. I smiled at the familiar sight of the Acropolis.
After a
shower I drank my coffee on the balcony. Later, after a lazy start
to the morning, my wife and I headed down the familiar steps towards
Café Poros on Tsakalof street. The feast of the lamb was
on and the delicious smell of roasted meat filled the air. In front
of our table where we drank ice coffee an old Greek man danced
with a dark-haired beauty in a scene from Zorba.
It did not take long before my wife and I were dancing
in a circle. Once the music had died down we sat down for a slice
of lamb and
lots of tzatsiki. It was then that we met John. He was sitting
beside me listening to my wife conversing with me when he offered
to take a photo of us. He said that he had the same Olympus camera.
In his sixties, John had been born in Athens but
had lived 19 years in Egypt. His mother and grandmother had belonged
to the small
Greek community that had thrived under the Egyptian kings until
the revolution had sent Farouk into exile and ushered years of
upheaval. Trained a chemist he had raised a family in France before
settling down in Kent where he worked as an international sales
director.
When I told him that I too had left my country because
of a revolution, John shook his head and said: "Good for you, my
friend!" When
I introduced myself as Cyrus he smiled and putting a hand on my
shoulder whispered, "No, you are Koroush."
I suddenly recalled Xenephon's description of Koroush
(Cyrus in Greek) in his so-called Anabasis whereby he stated that,
"Of
all the Persians who lived after Cyrus the Great, he was the most
like a king and the most deserving of an empire."
Naturally, we both knew the story of how 10,000
Greeks marched on Persia and all the rest. John revealed to me
that he had been
to Iran in the 1970s. "I had many Iranian friends connected
to the Shah," he said. "They took me hunting along
the Caspian and invited me to stay at their Persian villas." He
had liked Iran. His daughter was dating an Iranian in New York
and he spoke fluent Farsi and Arabic.
When talking about the history of Greece, John told
me that "love of one's country" was the most important trait of
a
true Greek. He sympathised with the sense of loss felt by many
exiled Iranians and confessed that he was a Greek monarchist who
had organised a lavish charity ball for ex-King Constantine in
London.
John talked about his mother who had died the previous
week and we sensed his sadness when he invited us to her empty
apartment
in a posh street behind the restaurant. He offered us some pastries
and showed us her pictures before touring with us as our guide.
"Athens is not a beautiful city," he said, "but it has character."
After a feeble attempt to climb up Mt Lycabettus
where a few Greeks offered us to share some lamb with them we left
Kolonaki for the
Panathenaic Stadium built in 330 B.C. and the metro station at
the Parliament Square with its artefacts and burial chambers.
Over a drink at the Grande Bretagne, John described
how he had once seen Onassis at the hotel. His interest in the
Shah's
three wives took up a good half hour of our discussion. He then
revealed that a Greek friend of his had once worked at the Palace
as a caterer and had witnessed how after each banquet the Shah
and Queen Soraya had danced the night away long after all the guests
and staff had left.
When our friend had left us my wife and I explored
the Neo-Classical buildings of the Academy on Eleftheriou Venizelou
Street and later
the National Historical Museum on Stadiou. On Amerikis we peeked
through the gates of the former house of Heinrich Schliemann, the
famed German archaeologist who supposedly discovered Homer's
city of Troy (a subject of a $200m Hollywood film staring Brad
Pitt).
We could not find a boat to visit the islands of
Hydra, Poros and Aegina on Easter Monday so we visited the port
of Piraeus (a ten
minutes taxi ride) and enjoyed another iced coffee at Café Fredo
and watched the boats in the historic port before returning to
Athens for a stroll down Ermou Street and busy Monastiraki.
A pleasant outdoor lunch next to the Tower of the
Winds (a 1st century BC sundial invented by a Syrian) was later
followed by
a film at a cinema (English with Greek subtitles). After a shower
at the hotel we ended the night with another great meal at Frame
with its bubble chairs, sheepskin armchairs and miniature hanging
gardens.
By the fifth day the charm of Athens had taken over.
The streets were fuller than ever. We spent the morning with Sophia,
a delightful
Swedish professor of Middle Eastern politics who had completed
a paper for the United Nations on the Iraqi immigrants in Greece.
She spoke of the Kurdish and Albanian refugees and their problems.
Our conversation continued over lunch at the Grande
Bretagne where she spoke of her Greek fiancé, her travels
to Iran and the tragic events in Iraq. My wife explained how she
had gone to a
church the night before to pray for the liberation of the Japanese
hostages and how happy she was that they had been finally set free.
"Have you been to the Acropolis?" Sophia asked,
delicately changing the topic. "Not yet. Tomorrow, perhaps," I
replied, sipping my wine. "It's a tradition," she
insisted.
After Sophia had left us my wife confessed that
she was not too keen to climb up to the Acropolis. So I told her
that I would make
an attempt the following morning. That afternoon my wife decided
to go shopping in Plaka and I went about in search of Greek cats.
The previous afternoon I had observed two ginger
cats staring from behind the windows of a drinks stall. Now in
a car park I came
across a friendly black cat with green eyes dozing under a navy
BMW. I guess my sense of loss over my cat Pishi had not healed.
I still recalled how upon my return from an Easter break in Paris
I had found her stiff and lifeless body on the Persian carpet in
my London flat.
In Athens I had felt my deceased cat's haunting
presence and when the sleepy feline walked up to me and rubbed
its head
against my hand I felt overwhelmed by sentimentality. A few Greek
passers by must have thought me unwell. But my cat's ghost
continued to send her love. Long after I had started my way back
to the hotel I was to meet another black cat that jumped out of
the Egyptian Embassy!
Taking another route I came across a bookshop on
Skoufa where I purchased a children's book, "The Saga of Alexander
the Great" with great illustrations of the Greek-Persian
wars. One of the assistants told me that he was fascinated by Zoroastrianism
and the Sassanid empire. "We like the Persians," he
told me. "I think that they are like us Greeks – very
civilised." A female assistant preferred to talk about the
Olympics. "We will show the world what a great people we
are," she said.
Back on my hotel balcony I was feeling happy, content
and completely invigorated by the lust for life in this lovely
city. The light
was dimming over Athens. Soon the streets were teaming with elegant
crowds. The climate was gentle and the air scented. Everything
was alive. What a carefree people the Athenians were, I thought
to myself. That night, I took my wife out to dinner in Kolonaki.
We talked and laughed about silly things we had
witnessed during our stay. Later, as we returned to our hotel,
night creatures
emerged to make the city theirs. We passed a smart-looking
designer shop
and admired a flowing white dress inspired by the one worn
by vestal virgins at Delphi.
It was midnight. I lay in bed looking out of the
window, my mind preoccupied by the stones on the hill, glowing
in the
dark. As
a keen reader of history I was unable to discard the powerful
imagery of the events that had rocked this city in 480 B.C.
I flipped through
Barry Strauss's book, Salamis, and absorbed his vivid description
of the invading Persian force that had arrived by land and
sea to punish Athens.
"In the three months before the battle
of Salamis," I read, "the Persians had marched through northern
and central
Greece, crushed
the Spartan army at Thermopylae, fought the Athenian navy
to a standstill at Artemisium, and entered Athens in triumph.
They had
burned the old temples of the Acropolis to the ground."
In the morning, fortified by a cold shower and a
big dose of Greek coffee, I took a taxi to the Acropolis.
The city was slowly waking up and the short ride
along the side of the Parliament building revealed a former
royal park
and tree-lined
avenues once graced by Athenian women dressed in the
imported chic fashions and dignified men who had adopted
"European"
suits and hats and who lived in those large, dignified
homes built
a
century or so ago. Thoughts of Niavaran and Shemiran
in the good old days returned.
To be an exile gives wings to the imagination. To
have one's soul yearning for a past long gone can consume
the senses,
confuse and torment, enthral and disappoint. The
Greeks knew the meaning
of exile and considered it the worst of punishments.
In Homer's Odyssey, King Alcinous listens patiently
to Odysseus who has sought shelter with him during
his ten
years' wandering
after the siege of Troy. The words now seemed hauntingly
true as I stepped out of the taxi and made my way
up the hill.
Many are the sorrows the gods of the sky have given
me.
Now first I will tell you my name, so that all
of you
may know me, and I hereafter, escaping the day
without pity,
Be your friend and guest,
though the home where I live
is far away from you.
The pride I had felt as
a child climbing the ruins of Persepolis was
now
replaced
by the adult I
had become as I ascended the sacred precincts
of Athens, the
cradle of democracy.
If the Persians were driven by their pride,
the Greeks were thinkers.
If my ancestors extolled the divinity of their
king of kings, the Greeks were suspicious
of power and
made every
attempt
to marginalise
those who flew too close to the sun.
And if the Persian placed his destiny in
the hands of supernatural forces, the Greek
interrogated
the mind
and allowed critical
introspection. History is more than a series
of
dates. I tried to imagine the
impact of the Persian invasion had it succeeded.
An Iranian friend had once quipped jokingly to
me that, "If the stubborn Greeks had lost,
Xerxes would
have
captured the Peloponnesus and everybody would
have been drinking
Persian
wine!"
At school in Iran I had been taught, like every
other proud Iranian, that the burning of Persepolis
in
330 B.C. by
Alexander the Great
had been an unforgivable act of revenge for
King Xerxes' destruction of the proud city
of Athens
and particularly
for the sacking
of the few temples that had stood on top of
the Acropolis.
I tried to reconstruct the terrifying scene.
The Persians had stormed into Athens to find
it deserted,
evacuated
in fact
by the orders
of its defending commander, Themistocles.
It did not matter for the vengeance that had been
denied
at Marathon
was
finally at
hand. Statues were overturned, vases smashed,
houses looted.
Some 512 feet high and 1000 feet wide, the
Athenian Acropolis is a natural fortress,
its slopes sheer
and precipitous.
The Persian
commander must have been surprised to learn
that a small band of barricaded defenders
were rolling
stones
down
on his troops
as
they attempted to climb the Acropolis.
Herodotus claims that the siege lasted a few days.
Finally the Persians
after trying
to negotiate
with the mad Greeks found a way up through
an unguarded pathway and quickly slaughtered
the
Athenians (a
few committed suicide
by leaping off the hill).
The Persians looted the treasures of the
temples and then set fire to the whole
hill, the wooden
beams of
its stone
buildings
blazing,
the statues of lions and sea monsters
crashing down. To the Greeks this act must have
seemed like the
end of the
world.
It was sacrilege, a crime against their
gods. From then on fighting the "barbarians"
was
no longer
an act of
self-defence but a religious duty.
Even as Athens burned, Themistocles
led the brave Greeks to a stunning
victory by defeating the
superior
Persian
fleet at Salamis and forcing the proud
King Xerxes and Queen Artemisia (one
of history's
few female
naval commanders)
to retreat
in disgrace.
Victory over the Persians was completed
after the battle of Plataea (479
B.C.) to the northwest
of
Athens, when
a combined
Greek
army annihilated the Persian armies
once and for all.
After that a solemn vow was made
by the victors never to rebuild
the shrines
that were destroyed
in the
war, preserving
them
instead as memorials for later
generations.
Thirty years later, Pericles, the
Athenian statesman, gathered
together the best
architects and artists
in the city to
rebuild the temples, bigger and
greater than before. Later, when
in the 15th century, Athens was
captured
by the Turks, the Parthenon
became a mosque, and the Erechtheion
temple with its ten deities became
a harem.
In 1686 most of the Parthenon
was damaged when a gunpowder
warehouse
for the
Ottoman garrison
exploded
inside
its walls. Time damaged
the rest but the mystique remained
inspiring poets, writers, historians
and romantic
travellers to
dwell over the
past.
That lovely morning, standing
beside the Temple of Athena,
I found myself
thinking
about the
future of democracy
in Iran. What better
place to make sense of the
past and present.
In 1979, as a teenager, I
had witnessed the toppling
of a
king and everything
that it
had represented
by a popular
and misguided
revolt. As a result 25
years of theocratic madness had
seized my country. Religion
had been
abused
to enslave a nation.
Ironically, in the 21st
century, the word democracy
was on
every Persian lip. It
still meant something
to the
millions of male
and female Iranians struggling
for their basic human
rights, rising above petty differences
as a universal
concept above all ideologies.
How strange that a couple
of broken stones should
hold such
sway over
human civilization.
From
this vantage
point I surveyed
the
city of Athena and
found below the tiny, peaceful
microcosm
of life.
It was spring
and if you
looked carefully,
one could pick
out the few trees gloriously
flaunting white and
pink blossoms.
It was my last day
in Athens and although
a
little sad
as I meandered
downhill
I had the
feeling
of having been
purified,
enlightened
perhaps. I left the
Acropolis with the
sun in my eyes.
Following the
paved stones
I
wondered who
else had
been here.
In the distance I
caught sight of
an Orthodox
priest, stroking
his
long
beard and resplendent
in his
dark robes. Moving
along in the holy
man's footsteps
I soon got
lost.
It took me a little
while to reorient
myself. As
I made
my way through
the peaceful
and dilapidated alleyways
I could
hear the
birds singing.
It was on Karyatidon-Kallisperi
street
where, to my
utter delight, I found
the
Ilias Lalaounis
Jewellery
Museum.
Founded in 1993
the museum
(situated on the south
side of the
Acropolis) is really
an
ode to Mr
Ilias Lalaounis,
a
genuinely
remarkable
man. Goldsmith
and
designer of
rare jewellery, academic,
artist,
businessman
and a member
of the French
Academy, he
exemplifies the last of that
special,
daring breed
that
drew inspiration
from the
beauties of
nature and creativity
from both
Greek and Persian
antiquity.
Chatting to
an elderly
lady
whom I suspect
was his wife
Lila I
was encouraged
to
visit the
first floor
where
among the
vast collection
(3000 pieces)
I
discovered
something
special. Between the
Mesopotamian
and Ottoman
sections
was a rather
unique exhibition
entitled,
"From Luristan
to Persepolis."
Instantly,
it caught
my attention.
As if in
Ali Baba's
cave,
I viewed
the treasures
behind
the glass cases:
pendant
in 22ct
gold and sodalite
inspired
by a 5th
century
Persian
vessel made of
stone,
a necklace
with
two
ibexes
facing
each other, a
gold-plated
bowl with
swan heads,
earrings
shaped
as grapes or
the crescent
moon, bracelets
inspired
by the
pillars of
the "Audience
Hall" of
the Palace
of Darius
I and
Xerxes
at the City
of
Persians.
In creating
these
refined pieces,
Lalaounis
had been
keenly
aware
of the pan-Hellenic
dream
of Alexander
and his
attempts
to marry
the culture
of
the Greeks
and Persians.
When
Macedonia invaded
Persepolis
and ended
Achaemenid
rule,
Greek merchants
and
soldiers
came
to live in
Anatolia,
Syria,
Mesopotamia
and Iran.
For me,
the
attraction of these
pieces
was
in
the celebration
of
common cultural
traditions
as
well as intermingling
styles
that
runs
as
a constant
theme
in
Lalaounis' masterpieces.
Downstairs
the
elderly
Athenian
lady
was
intrigued
to
find
out
that
a
Persian
was
in
her
midst.
Her
initial
reserve
was
soon
replaced
by
an
eagerness
to
tell
me
how
the
master
had
come
to
be
inspired
by
Persia.
I
felt
a
sudden
rush
of
emotions.
As
the story
emerged from
the mist
of time
I learned
how it
had begun.
Sometime in
1976, Her
Majesty, Farah
Pahlavi, the
wife of
the late
Shah of
Persia, invited
Lalaounis to
come to
Tehran to
present a
collection at
the Imperial
Court based
on Persian
art.
It
was a
demanding task.
Lalaounis immersed
himself in
a study
of Persian
art and
toured the
museums in
Iran and
collections abroad
only to
realise the
sheer complexity
of the
project. His
library was
filled with
books on
the arts
from Persia
ranging from
the tribal
graves in
Luristan in
western Iran
to that
of the
Imperial Court
in Persepolis.
On
the eve
of the
50th anniversary
of the
Pahlavi dynasty
a special
presentation of
Lalaounis jewelry
and vessels
in 22ct
gold took
place at
the Imperial
Court. By
all accounts,
Empress Farah
and her
guests were
more than
pleased by
the results.
Amir Abbas
Hoveyda, the
Shah's prime
minister, was
a man
of great
culture and
was so
moved that
he complimented
the Greek
jeweller on
his accurate
knowledge of
Persian art,
adding that
he possibly
knew more
of the
culture than
an Iranian.
I
left the
museum and
made one
final tour
of the
surrounding houses
and ancient
stones at
the foot
of the
Acropolis, savouring
images of
a city
that had
finally seduced
me. Catching
a taxi
back to
the hotel
I went
up to
my wife
who had
in her
practical way
already packed
our luggage.
Before leaving
for the
airport we
had lunch
at a
Greek restaurant
in one
of the
chic streets
of Kolonaki.
As we
awaited our
dish of
salmon and
rice, my
wife handed
me a
small gift
wrapped box.
"I
wanted to
thank you
for a
memorable time,"
she said,
looking at
me with
those big
eyes, enchanting
me with
her lovely
smile. I
opened the
present and
found a
silver and
green worry
bead. "It's
lovely," I
whispered, leaning
over the
table to
kiss her.
 We
left Athens
with a
feeling that
our love
affair with
this marvellous
city had
just begun,
awakening a
desire to
learn more
about its
many layers.
And these
words sprung
from Lalaounis'
book titled
"Metamorphoses":
"Every
work of
art contains
a message,
an idea,
it is
a symbol
and a
memory that
links the
past with
the present." >>> See photos
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