"ATHENS - The voice of Elvis singing White Christmas echoes all the way a few days before Christmas. Beside the boxes a six year old child squirms in a down jacket that is too big for his age, with a finger indicates the shelf of candy in a store that sells off everything. The mother strokes his head and looks away. This is not the time of gifts. Because Athens is not celebrating.
The city faces the period as if it were a punishment for not being able to celebrate anything. The umpteenth humiliation after being strangled by debt, cuts and taxes. And by the demands of the Troika. The City tries to make us forget the crisis, violence, poverty. He planted a tree festooned little amid Omonia square, besieged by crime and prostitution. Below, a crib that night is used by the homeless as a refuge. It set the lights to Kolonnakis, shopping district of luxury, but among the empty shops, albeit with discounts of 70 per cent, and closed ones seems the set of a film about a life that no longer exists. Thousands of people are walking, in what should be the last Saturday of the pre-Christmas shopping, without having bags in hand. Without a smile. Do not stop even before the windows to indicate the object of desire. The appearance, so dear to the Greeks, no longer matters. Crowd the coffee. But to sit at a table to talk about the economic situation, it seems now the only true luxury you can afford.
40 percent of teenagers between 18 and 30 are unemployed. In many work for free. They try to round up doing, at best, the waiters. Who can beat it, leaves the country. He left for Germany, Sweden. In front of the Australian Embassy for days hundreds have queued: you seek doctors to "import" in Sydney.
And the effects are seen everywhere, even in Pireus street, where thousands of Greeks line up for a meal to take away in a blue bag. Are seen walking the streets of the center that now has been divided between gangs and immigrants who thought of finding work in Europe. Instead, they are forced to stay in Greece. Without a job. Have divided the territory of drug dealing and prostitution. A dose of heroin, as well as a few minutes in the company, it costs five euro, the same amount that you pay for two souvlaki (skewers). And when night falls there is greek that can pass free of these streets. Crime (to 9 percent in 2009) has doubled in two years. The roads badly lit make the center a little papal candidate for tourists and businessmen. With the result that thousands of companies have abandoned their offices and at least 18 hotels around Omonia have closed. The heart of Athens stopped beating with this exodus.
A group of students made off of the University of Athens sings hoping to snatch a smile to passersby. And, needless to say, a few coins. The basket is almost empty. And 'Christmas in times of crisis. And 'Christmas 2011 in Athens. "(Corriere.it - 20/12/2011 - article summary)
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As appears even more decrepit the Parthenon on the Acropolis esplanade. From there the city and the entire nation are a seriously ill at his bedside. And as it looks black and the sky full of clouds around Olympus; are all the gods who fled from that peak used to protect the flower garden once?
Large and merciless rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch in the head, give Greece already for dead, ruling that the "default" is now sure thing. And the Greeks themselves seem to have lying and conformed to this scenario by catastrophe inevitable. Everything is in ruins, such as those mutilated sculptures and encrusted with Phidias and Polykleitos. There is breath of hope in the air in Athens, only the echoes of resigned unnecessary violent clashes in Syntagma square between the police and the mob against the maneuvers "tears and blood". And 'now a people lost, hurt, humiliated, depressed, helpless, abandoned in the hands of hardliners "Troika" and its political cowards, collusionand condescending. And this was a glorious people, to whom we owe much of our human development, and that is no longer even able to live with enthusiasm their centuries-old traditions. How sad to read surreal atmosphere that reigns in Athens and around Christmas, important feast for Christians but they subtracted from Greek tragedy they are experiencing.
The city faces the period as if it were a punishment for not being able to celebrate anything. The umpteenth humiliation after being strangled by debt, cuts and taxes. And by the demands of the Troika. The City tries to make us forget the crisis, violence, poverty. He planted a tree festooned little amid Omonia square, besieged by crime and prostitution. Below, a crib that night is used by the homeless as a refuge. It set the lights to Kolonnakis, shopping district of luxury, but among the empty shops, albeit with discounts of 70 per cent, and closed ones seems the set of a film about a life that no longer exists. Thousands of people are walking, in what should be the last Saturday of the pre-Christmas shopping, without having bags in hand. Without a smile. Do not stop even before the windows to indicate the object of desire. The appearance, so dear to the Greeks, no longer matters. Crowd the coffee. But to sit at a table to talk about the economic situation, it seems now the only true luxury you can afford.
40 percent of teenagers between 18 and 30 are unemployed. In many work for free. They try to round up doing, at best, the waiters. Who can beat it, leaves the country. He left for Germany, Sweden. In front of the Australian Embassy for days hundreds have queued: you seek doctors to "import" in Sydney.
And the effects are seen everywhere, even in Pireus street, where thousands of Greeks line up for a meal to take away in a blue bag. Are seen walking the streets of the center that now has been divided between gangs and immigrants who thought of finding work in Europe. Instead, they are forced to stay in Greece. Without a job. Have divided the territory of drug dealing and prostitution. A dose of heroin, as well as a few minutes in the company, it costs five euro, the same amount that you pay for two souvlaki (skewers). And when night falls there is greek that can pass free of these streets. Crime (to 9 percent in 2009) has doubled in two years. The roads badly lit make the center a little papal candidate for tourists and businessmen. With the result that thousands of companies have abandoned their offices and at least 18 hotels around Omonia have closed. The heart of Athens stopped beating with this exodus.
A group of students made off of the University of Athens sings hoping to snatch a smile to passersby. And, needless to say, a few coins. The basket is almost empty. And 'Christmas in times of crisis. And 'Christmas 2011 in Athens. "(Corriere.it - 20/12/2011 - article summary)
.
As appears even more decrepit the Parthenon on the Acropolis esplanade. From there the city and the entire nation are a seriously ill at his bedside. And as it looks black and the sky full of clouds around Olympus; are all the gods who fled from that peak used to protect the flower garden once?
Large and merciless rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch in the head, give Greece already for dead, ruling that the "default" is now sure thing. And the Greeks themselves seem to have lying and conformed to this scenario by catastrophe inevitable. Everything is in ruins, such as those mutilated sculptures and encrusted with Phidias and Polykleitos. There is breath of hope in the air in Athens, only the echoes of resigned unnecessary violent clashes in Syntagma square between the police and the mob against the maneuvers "tears and blood". And 'now a people lost, hurt, humiliated, depressed, helpless, abandoned in the hands of hardliners "Troika" and its political cowards, collusionand condescending. And this was a glorious people, to whom we owe much of our human development, and that is no longer even able to live with enthusiasm their centuries-old traditions. How sad to read surreal atmosphere that reigns in Athens and around Christmas, important feast for Christians but they subtracted from Greek tragedy they are experiencing.