Like most large urban cities, Athens faces many challenges. Illegal tagging and graffiti, run-down schools, and the lack of public green areas are just a few of the effects of the recent crisis in Greece.

The City of Athens aims to deal with these problems by finding straightforward, practical solutions to help Athens recover from the recent economic crisis, as well as the current pandemic. To make Athens a cleaner, more accessible, and more sustainable city, it is essential to build collaborations between citizens and the public and private sectors.

It is this exactly that spurred the launch of the "Adopt Your City" program. The City of Athens is calling for our support to protect, upgrade, and maintain the city's public spaces; urging residents, enterprises, foundations, and organizations to "adopt" a street, a park, a square, a playground, a sports facility, a neighborhood, or even a tree to make Athens a brighter, greener, and friendlier place to live in.

The program includes big and small projects in every part of the city - including the redevelopment of Omonia Square and this pocket park in Pagrati. All interested parties are welcome to contribute ideas, in-kind offers, or donations. The "Adopt Your City" program focuses on areas such as sanitation, lighting, greenery, sustainable development, homeless issues, culture, social welfare, sports, education, and new technologies.

Learn more about this program here. You may also be interested to read about how Novoville is helping facilitate citizen to government communication.

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XpatAthens extends a warm thank you to This Is Athens and the City Of Athens for sharing news and inspiring stories about how Athens aspires to be a clean, friendly, and welcoming city to live in and visit.

Heavy snow covered Athens on Tuesday February 16th as was expected by the 'Medea storm' with temperatures reaching well below freezing! 

Even though the Greek capital and its historic monuments looked incredibly beautiful covered in white and Athenians emerged cautiously outside, snapping photos, authorities appealed to the public to restrict their movements and stay inside. 

Outside the Greek parliament, orange-colored snowplows cleared streets of ice, while presidential guards, dressed in traditional pleated kilts and pompom-tipped shoes, were given blue capes to brave the cold. The slippery floor in front of the monument affected the changing of the guard as it was not carried out in the known way with a march, but with a military vehicle.

It is noted that Medea also halted COVID-19 vaccinations in Athens and many other services across the country were brought to a standstill. The heavy snow forced public transport services to stop, while toppled trees caused blackouts in several areas of the capital. Furthermore, sections of Greece's main highways were closed, most ferry services to the islands were cancelled, and flights from regional airports to Athens were disrupted.

All in all, there was an unprecedented amount of snow in Athens this week. It was absolutely beautiful to see, it caused a lot of unexpected disruption, and as we're rounding up our week, the snow has already melted in most parts of the city.

To see some amazing pictures of Athens covered in snow, visit our Facebook page here.

Image Credit: @chromecabrio

Sources:
Greek City Times
CTV News
Euronews

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335 bins with 100L capacity have been placed on 18 main streets and squares across Athens. This is the first phase of an operation aiming to place a total of 2,000 such bins all over the city.

All of this is part of a great effort to improve and modernize the way in which the city of Athens is kept clean. Large cleaning operations are conducted daily by the Municipality of Athens throughout the city, while the supply of new equipment ensures everything that is needed is supplied. In this case, the new garbage bins are grey and metal with a built-in lock to prevent someone from either stealing or destroying them. They are designed in such a way to prevent damage, thus increasing their durability and reducing the cost of constantly buying new bins, a cost incurred by the municipality.

It was so common for citizens and visitors to walk around holding their rubbish because there was a lack of bins! "It sounds kinda funny when you're describing to someone that you had to walk many kilometers to dispose of a piece of paper or a soda can but, unfortunately, that was Athens' reality", the Mayor of Athens, Costas Bakogiannis, stated.

The Municipality of Athens follows the same strategy regarding other areas of daily life, such as recycling. Although citizens were repeatedly encouraged to recycle, there were many times that they saw the municipality's garbage trucks collecting the contents of both the blue and the green bins, not separately as they should. Now, however, with the installation of new green, blue, and brown bins in the capital's neighborhoods, as well as the supply of vehicles that collect waste in the right way, this picture has changed.

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XpatAthens extends a warm thank you to This Is Athens and the City Of Athens for sharing news and inspiring stories about how Athens aspires to be a clean, friendly, and welcoming city to live in.

Novoville is a comprehensive civic engagement platform that facilitates end-to-end communications between local governments and citizens. With the help of the Novoville App, the Municipality of Athens aims to strengthen its digital strategy and significantly improve communication with its citizens, and above all, ease of service and delivery.

Novoville offers citizens the opportunity to submit requests about issues related to the city's operation either via a mobile app or the Athens Municipality website. Citizens or visitors can report - in real-time - issues they encounter in their neighborhood. For example, potholes, broken street lights, abandoned vehicles, even emergencies requiring municipal assistance. Every citizen can contact local authorities directly from their smartphone for free, and without having to go through time-consuming bureaucratic procedures.

The Adopt Your City program facilitated a real example of how this works in a recent 'pocket park' development in Pagrati in central Athens.

Requests can be submitted either by downloading the free app, for IOS and Android, or by visiting the Municipality of Athens webpage.

There are 4 simple steps: 

• Choose your location
• Choose a request category
• Add a photo
• Send the request to the Municipality of Athens

Then, your request will be received by the relevant department and you will get notifications on the progress. In this way, the services of the Municipality of Athens are fully aware of the city's issues and can be held accountable for their actions. Every time an issue is resolved, the citizen receives a live notification on their phone. At the same time, with the help of the app, citizens can be informed about events, important news, and announcements.

Citizens can also address issues by contacting the city directly at 1595 or 210 5277000 on a 24-hour basis throughout the year. 

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XpatAthens extends a warm thank you to This Is Athens and the City Of Athens for sharing news and inspiring stories about how Athens aspires to be a clean, friendly, and welcoming city to live in.

"No link in the city should be broken. Life in Athens goes through its streets, squares, sidewalks and neighborhoods. Fountains are links connecting the city in this chain" said the Athens Mayor Costas Bakogiannis.

For many years, the history and culture of Athens has been strongly connected with fountains. From small ones in neighborhood squares to emblematic ones like the one at Omonia Square.

Fountains have always been a big part of the city and its everyday life. Their colorful, running waters and sculptures have always been part of our walks, our overall experience of the city, and in turn of course the relationship that we have with Athens. Especially during this period of lockdown, when a simple walk has such importance and value to each one of us. 

 

The project started with the construction of the fountain at Omonia Sqaure which regained its emblematic character. Today, the Municipality of Athens is making great efforts to revive 34 emblematic fountains across the city. They are being repaired and renovated in order to offer residents and visitors a much needed fresh breath. Many of these developments have been made possible by the Adopt Your City program.

The municipality is determined to continue this large undertaking with fountain renovations already started at Truman Square, Rigillis Square, at the National Research & Foundation Square, Metaxourgio Square, Egyptou Square, Plateia Amerikis  and in the areas of Fix and Patission.

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XpatAthens extends a warm thank you to This Is Athens and the City Of Athens for sharing news and inspiring stories about how Athens aspires to be a clean, friendly, and welcoming city to live in.

The online platform that paves the way for Greek citizens who live abroad to vote in the next Greek national election is expected to be up and running soon. The platform will enable overseas Greeks to register their details and cast their vote at the next national election from their place of residence.

The implementation of the law on the voting rights of diaspora and overseas Greeks aims to correct any injustices felt by Greeks living abroad. It is worth noting that the Greeks and the Irish, are the only European citizens who cannot vote in their home country from anywhere in the world, even if they are only away for a short holiday on election day.

The Interior Ministry expects that about 300,000 Greek citizens abroad will register to vote in the next election, even though more accurate details and numbers will be available in due time.

The legislation gives all Greek citizens living abroad the right to vote in the next national election providing they can prove that they have lived in Greece for 2 consecutive years in the last 35 years, by presenting a variety of documentary evidence, such as a national service certificate, proof of social security contributions, and degrees from Greek universities.

The main goal of the bill is to give voting rights to the Greeks who were compelled to seek employment abroad during the Greek financial crisis and more broadly those who, despite having left Greece, still have close ties with the country.

Voting will take place around the world, at polling stations set up and supervised by the Greek Interior Ministry. However, to establish a voting station in a region there must be at least 40 registered voters.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that whoever registers to vote from their place of residence will automatically forfeit their right to vote in Greece.

To read this article in full, please visit: ekathimerini.com

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, ERT–the Greek public television network–made an important addition to its program, by launching a new hybrid television platform called ERTFLIX.

 

ERTFLIX provides free access to several award-winning foreign films, foreign TV series, Greek series, award-winning documentaries, children's programs, and educational courses designed by the Ministry of Education.

The platform was designed by ERT technicians and its interface is very similar to Netflix or Amazon Prime.

 

To connect to ERTFLIX, you'll need a smart TV connected to the internet and to follow the video instructions on ERT's YouTube channel. Alternatively, you can visit ERTFLIX and watch the programs directly from your laptop or tablet.

An abundance of commemorating events such as museum exhibitions, theater productions, and historical re-enactments was planned in Greece to honor the bicentennial of the Greek War of Independence.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, mezzo-soprano Artemis Bogri and her fellow vocalists performed the Greek National Opera’s new production of “Despo” in a theater empty of spectators. Despo, the title character in Pavlos Carrer’s 1875 opera chooses death over captivity by detonating ammunition stored in a fortress as Ottoman forces close in.

“Artists prepare two or three months for a production and then take that work to an audience,” she said. “Now, we have to generate that energy with no one there. That’s not easy.”

The bicentennial events intended to illustrate Greece’s modern accomplishments have been postponed, scaled back, or moved online due to the pandemic and school parades were canceled on account of the surge in Covid-19 infections.

Like the National Opera, other cultural foundations have formed small work teams to salvage their celebration plans despite the acute financial pressure they are facing due to the ongoing lockdown measures in Greece.


To read this article in full, please visit: ekathimerini.com

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall confirmed on Friday that they will visit Athens on March 24-25 to participate in the events marking the bicentenary of the Greek War of Independence.

The visit comes at the request of the British Government and follows an invitation from Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Clarence House said in a press release.

The bicentenary event’s Independence Day celebrations will take place from the evening of March 24 and will conclude on March 25. 

Prince Charles will be awarded a 'Gold City Value Medal' in a special ceremony that will take place at the City Hall and will be awarded by the Mayor of Athens Costas Bakoyannis.

The award is in recognition of the contribution of the people of the United Kingdom to the liberation of Greece, but also to the devotion and contribution of the Prince of Wales to the protection of the environment, the protection of cultural heritage and the promotion of letters and fine arts.

The two royals will also attend a reception at the newly re-opened National Gallery of Greece on the evening of March 24 hosted by President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square and a traditional military parade on March 25. 

This article was originally posted on ekathimerini.com
Photo credit: Samir Hussein

A magnificent tapestry depicting the School of Athens painting by the Italian master Raphael has been loaned to Greece by France to adorn Greek Parliament. The priceless 18th-century tapestry was sent to Athens in honor of the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution and War of Independence.

Parliamentary President Konstantinos Tasoulas and the French Ambassador in Athens, Patrick Maisonnave, attended the hanging of the tapestry on a wall in Parliament.

The masterpiece has adorned the French National Assembly since 1879 and arrived in our country as a gift from the French Republic to Greece on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution.

To read this article in full, please visit: greekreporter.com
Photo credit: AMNA