The Haridimos Shadow Puppet Museum in Athens, is a museum that keeps an important part of Greek cultural history alive. Karagiozis Shadow Puppet Shows were both pre-television era entertainment, and a way for Greeks to subtly poke fun at the ruling Ottoman empire. Anyone from the UK will instantly think of Punch and Judy.

Shadow puppet shows playes a hugely important role for Greeks during the years of Ottoman rule.  They were a way to poke fun at the Ottoman empire, pass on information, recount history and much more.  The main character in these shows was Karagiozis.  He is depicted as having a large nose, a humped-back and one arm longer than the other.  His character was someone who always tried to outwit society, but his attempts normally ended in comical disaster.  This provided the perfect opportunity to create stories around current affairs and the social situation under the Ottomans.  Social and political satire at its finest!

Visitors to the Haridimos Shadow Puppet Museum will notice almost immediately that it is not well signed, as in there is no English signage - this includes the exhibits inside.  It is tucked away to the left hand side of the Melina Mercouri Cultual Centre.

To read more, please visit: Daves Travel Pages

The Haridimos Shadow Puppet Museum in Athens is located in the Melina Mercouri Cultural Centre, 66 Iraklidon & Thessalonikis sts, Thissio.

The closest metro station is at Thissio. Entrance is free.

The general opening hours are 09.00 until 14.00 and 17.00 until 21.00 everyday except Mondays and Sundays. You may wish to call them on  210 3452150, 210 3414466 if you want to make sure they are open when you wish to visit

A total of 162 suspicious transactions were reported and 133 individuals detained earlier this month during a joint operation to combat online fraud in the airline sector, Europol said in a statement last week.

Under the coordination of Europol, the operation included travel and credit card companies such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express, 35 airlines and 32 countries* across 109 airports and targeted criminals suspected of fraudulently purchasing plane tickets online using stolen or fake credit card data.

“This operation was the culmination of many months of meticulous planning between Europol, law enforcement, prosecuting and border control agencies, airlines and credit card companies, and is a perfect example of how our combined forces can track down the criminal syndicates responsible for committing large scale fraud and other offences,” said Europol Director Rob Wainwright.

The rise in internet-facilitated crime — often via fake online “travel agencies” — affects millions of travelers every year with the banking, airline and travel industries suffering massive financial losses in the process. Europol adds that in many cases credit card fraud has been linked to drug trafficking and human trafficking, among others.

To read more, please visit: Greek Travel Pages

Greece, widely known for its ancient art and culture, is increasingly becoming a hub for creative and award-winning international talents in contemporary industrial design. Stimulating, cutting-edge industrial design in Greece portrays diversity, creative evolution, modernity and, most importantly, humour. These are ten of the best contemporary product designers from Greece.

Thanos Karampatsos and Christina Kotsilelou are the inspired, humorous minds behind Greece is for Lovers. Since 2006 they have been passionately designing, producing and promoting novel, high-quality products that put a decidedly irreverent spin on Hellenic heritage. Located under Acropolis in the historical centre of Athens, Greece is for Lovers stubbornly fight the stereotypes of what is widely thought to be Greek along with the idea that ‘Greek people tend to take their culture very seriously’. Combining some of Greece’s spiciest ingredients, such as humour, irony, nonchalance and extravagance, these objects introduce a fresh breeze into contemporary product design. Among their products, which are eye-catching, innovative but deeply rooted in Greek tradition, a brown leather skateboard that incorporates Greek-style sandals into the board unquestionably stands out.

The multi-award-winning designer Constantinos Hoursoglou founded his multi-disciplinary studio in Athens in 2002 and since 2007 he has been productively working in Geneva. Both his Royal College of Art education and professional experience in Athens, London and New York play a key role in his uncompromising effort to foresee the chaotic changes in the world, while designing avant-garde but useful products. With aesthetics, technology and ecology in the spotlight of his creative work, Constantinos Hoursoglou is known for choosing great materials and inventive manufacturing methods. CHD studio provides wide-ranging services, such as graphic and exhibition design and product design and development and has participated – among others – in the St. Etienne Design Biennale and Salone Satellite.

To read more, please viist: The Culture Trip

Couples who choose to sign a so-called cohabitation agreement, including same-sex partners, will have virtually the same rights as those who are married with the exception of the right to adopt a child, according to new legal provisions that were put up for public consultation on Monday 9th November 2015 by the Justice Ministry.

The agreement, which in its current form grants non-married couples similar rights to those who are married, would be extended, giving signatories the favorable tax status enjoyed by married couples and increased inheritance rights. In the case of civil servants, the same benefits granted to married couples would apply.

The bill unveiled by Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos yesterday also includes provisions aimed at boosting anti-racism legislation. According to the proposed legislation, not only offenses with racist motives will be regarded as crimes, but also those stemming from discrimination based on someone’s sex or religion.

To read more, please visit: ekathimerini

Journalist and editor Lorraine Eyre runs the “Homeless but not Hopeless” charity. In a piece written for GreekTV, Lorraine reflects on the misguided attitudes about the homeless community in the country, the reasons many find themselves on the streets, and offers vignettes of individual stories.

Greek student Dimitris Hatzis is the youngest person ever to create a life-sized humanoid using a 3D printer.  The 15 year old student from Kavala (Northern Greece) created the robot as part of the "InMoov" project, an open source platform.

Hatzis was able to costruct the robot using the platform that is centered around the development of a man-sized robot humanoid.  Like others on the project, he was able to access instructions from platform and share his project.  Success came for the student after a year of daily work.

Only six people in the world, including Hatzis, have been able to complete the task.  Dimitri is the youngest ever.  Other successful candidates are the original designers
of the robot; Frenchman Gael Langevin, two Russians, a German and an Italian.

For more information, please visit: Greek Gateway

According to a bill submitted to parliament in October, men will now also be granted child-care leave. It will be granted, if desired, by the insured individual, after the 4-month pregnancy and maternity leave of the mother.

The monthly amount paid to the beneficiary is up to 586 Euros and is paid by OAED. Note, the child-care leave can be taken by either the mother or father, but not both individuals.

Originally posted in Greek on NewMoney

Religion typically divides us as people, but in Lesbos last week at the memorial service for the souls lost in the Aegean, Muslims and Christians prayed together. Each prayed based on their beliefs and together they stood in the face of reality's pain.

As described by the photographer, Konstantinos Vougioukas:

'A mother stands as a statue. One can feel how historical such moments are when you see Christians and Muslims praying all together for the victims that drowned in the Aegean Sea... Because human life does not recognize religion.'

 

 

In 2005, some 800 Greeks took part in the Athens Classic Marathon, while this year more than 9,000 are said to have set off from starting line on Sunday November 8. A decade ago, Greece held no more than 50 events a year for amateur runners, but now, including mountain races, these surpass 300.

Running in Greece has become so popular in recent years that even professionals have been caught unaware. It has given rise to new professions, offset the losses of others and gradually changed the mentality of many in regard to sport.

Amateur runner Marios Kritikos tells Kathimerini that he began running on the encouragement of friends, and in a bid to shed a bit of weight. Today, at the age of 37, he works as a software engineer at a mutinational firm and has completed eight marathons in Greece and abroad, two mountain races on Olympus and one 12-hour race in Elefsina. Not everyone could understand his passion at first. “The first summer I went to my wife’s village and ran in tights, the locals laughed at me,” he says. “Last year and this year, though, I saw a lot of people either running or walking in the same areas. We’re growing accustomed to the sight. It does not raise eyebrows as it once did.”

The growing popularity of running is particularly well illustrated in the numbers for the Athens Marathon, which is organized by SEGAS, Greece’s athletics federation. Enrollments this year (including the 5k and 10k races that are held on the same day) came to more than 40,000, from just 7,300 in 2007. In the period between 2011 and 2012, foreign travel agents reduced their reservations for runners from abroad because of the mass protests in Athens but this loss was offset by a spike in the number of Greeks who signed up, breaking all previous records.

An athletics event of this size is particularly lucrative. This year organizers estimated that, thanks to the arrival of runners and their friends and families from abroad, around 10 million euros will be spent at hotels, restaurants, archaeological sites and retail stores over the five-day period.

How can Greeks’ sudden interest in running be explained? “I think the crisis played a big role. Running is a form of stress relief and low-maintenance. All you have to do is put on a pair of shorts and running shoes and go outside,” says physical therapist Giorgos Psaroyiannis, a veteran runner himself. Last year he treated more than 1,000 runners, compared to a decade ago when he barely had 200.

ΟHe has noticed that most people start running in their 30s and while it starts as a hobby, many overdo it or make technical mistakes, often leading to injury. “I tell them that they need to have continuity. The aim is to run for as many years as we can,” says Psaroyiannis.

One recent afternoon at the Olympic Stadium, dozens of amateur runners pushed the extra few kilometers under the floodlights as they counted down the last two weeks to the Marathon. Polias watched them from a corner, stopwatch in hand.

“I want to believe that this is not a passing trend,” he says. “In running, nothing comes for free. You have to keep trying until you reach your goal. People who put running in their lives and are committed keep doing it because it is an unbelievable source of joy and well-being.”

To read this article in full, please visit eKathimerini

Aegean Airlines has announced the introduction of 14 new destinations from Athens, 111 international routes to 45 countries and investments in four new Airbus A320 carriers.

During a presentation of its 2016 business plan, the Greek carrier said that its primary aim is to boost Athens as a hub by intensifying the number of direct connections to new markets, adding 14 international destinations (Dublin, Nice, Lille, Naples, Bari, Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Palma de Mallorca, Ljubljana, Jeddah, Krakow, Vilnius, Split), and six new countries: Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Lithuania.

It also said that it plans to increase the number of destinations and frequencies in sector-significant markets such as France, Italy, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

In total, the company will link the Greek capital with 101 destinations – 71 foreign, 30 domestic – opening up in the meantime 12.5 million jobs, an additional 1 million compared to 2015.

To read more, please visit: Greek Travel Pages