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Greece: Controversial subway project in Thessaloniki

2021-07-04T13:20:33.057Z


The subway in Thessaloniki is a billion-dollar project - but an ancient trade route was discovered during the construction work. Now the country is wrestling about what is more important: progress or cultural heritage.


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Metro construction site in Thessaloniki: "We already have enough antiques in Greece"

Photo: Alexandros Avramidis

If you want to travel two thousand years into the past in Thessaloniki, you have to go to Egnatia Street. In the shopping mile in the center of the second largest city in Greece, passers-by and customers, locals and tourists cavort. Not to be overlooked, in the middle of the hustle and bustle, is a gaping hole. Workers in helmets and engineers work behind a barrier. The excavation site can then be reached via a staircase, which leads almost six meters into the depth.

Once at the bottom, you feel as if you have opened a gate to another time.

Another street runs there, parallel to its busy counterpart directly above it.

Instead of cars, people, neon lights and traffic lights, there is a marble-paved path, 76 meters long and 7.5 meters wide.

It is the best preserved section of the legendary ancient Via Egnatia.

A cultural crime against historical legacy?

Built by the Romans in the 2nd century on behalf of Senator Gnaeus Egnatius, the Via Egnatia connected Istanbul with the Adriatic Sea. Every Greek student knows them. Saint Paul was on her way, the armies of Julius Caesar and Pompey, crusaders, Byzantine merchants and thieves. There are the remains of shops and goldsmiths' workshops, a collapsed monumental stone arch, a sewer and water pipes. A remarkable sign that the commercial center of the city was here as early as 1,700 years ago. Archaeologists say this is unique in the world.

In Thessaloniki, people were enthusiastic when this section of Via Egnatia was found in 2012.

People proudly remembered the more than two thousand year history of the city, which can boast a total of 15 Unesco world heritage sites.

But in the meantime the find has become the subject of a heated argument.

Because the street was discovered during construction work for the subway, which is finally to be built in Thessaloniki,

that it was so well preserved surprised everyone.

The subway construction was stopped for the time being.

Greek courts and monument protection authorities had to rule on numerous complaints because the builders had decided to demolish and store the ancient street stone by stone in order to rebuild it after the work on the Metrostration was completed.

It is the only technically and financially feasible solution, so the argumentation.

Critics of this idea not only doubt the truthfulness of the arguments.

They also consider the planned action to be a cultural crime against the historical legacy of Greece and Europe.

Now that the country's highest court of justice has approved the demolition and reconstruction with a wafer-thin majority, paving the way for the resumption of construction work, the dispute has now escalated completely.

The subway for Thessaloniki was announced in 2004 with the promise to reduce commuting times, protect the environment and save the city from traffic gridlocks. 1.5 billion euros were invested in what is currently the largest infrastructure project in Greece. The project is co-financed by the EU. Construction began in 2006 and was originally scheduled to be completed six years later. Due to financial problems, but also because of the archaeological excavations, completion is not expected before the end of 2023 - in the best case scenario.

For many of the citizens of Thessaloniki this is taking too long.

"We already have enough antiques in Greece," comments a passer-by looking through the site fence.

“It's time we got modern infrastructure.” According to a 2019 survey, 51 percent of residents are in favor of removing the Via Egnatia so that the construction of the subway can finally continue.

38 percent say the excavation find should stay where it is.

The boss of the metro construction company Nikos Tachiaos says that the removal of the street will not change its value, since it will return to its original location.

On Tuesday, the court officially made its decision public.

Tachiaos confirmed to SPIEGEL that, as soon as the government gives the order, his workers will start clearing the Via Egnatia.

Last hope: Prime Minister Mitsotakis

The project should be completed within four months.

The solution advocated by the opponents of the proceedings - leaving the road where it was found - would be time-consuming, cost-intensive and, quite possibly, technically impossible.

The other side argues that removing ancient finds would undermine Greece's most important product: culture. The discovery of the old Via Egnatia documents the permanent presence of life in the city. "The ancient street runs where the modern street is today," says Angelos Chaniotis, a renowned professor of ancient history and classical philology who is currently doing research at a private institute in Princeton. »Imagine that two thousand years from now archaeologists will discover the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, which is not only well preserved and located in a city that still exists today, but also fulfills a similar function as it did two thousand years ago. Would the Germans want the gate to be dismantled and then reassembled? «.

Chaniotis argues that the solution favored by the government and the builders undermines Greece's credibility for dealing well with cultural heritage: “We cannot ask the British Museum to return the Parthenon marbles if the Greek state is jeopardizing such important antiquities. “Critics also fear that once the road is removed, it will never be brought back. And even if they did, their value would be diminished: “This is not a mosaic; you can't just take it apart and put it back together again, ”says Chaniotis.

Chaniotis, international academics and Greek archaeologists are now placing their last hope in Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Stimulating the debate on the case in the EU is part of their plan to change the Prime Minister's mind.

A number of articles have just appeared in the international press, including in Germany.

An initiative by MEPs is planned for the near future.

In a joint letter, dozens of renowned experts have already appealed to Mitsotakis to intervene.

If their demands are not heeded, they warn in their letter, it would be a disaster for Greece.

It would be equivalent to the bombing of the Parthenon in 1687.

Translation from English: Lilian-Astrid Geese

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-07-04

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