Greece 2018

Yearbook 2018

Greece. According to Countryaah.com, Athens is the capital city of Greece, a country located in Southern Europe. The Greek economy is doing better, albeit not well. During the year came reports that, for example, Standard & Poor’s in January raised the country’s credit rating to B from the former B-. The decision was justified in January with the country’s “steadily improving general government finances and its gradually recovering economic outlook”. Later, the credit rating was raised to B + with the “probable upgrade” extension. In Bloomberg’s so-called misery index, Greece came in fifth place with Turkey – better placed than Venezuela, South Africa, Argentina and Egypt. The misery index measures the sum of a country’s unemployment and inflation. The emergency loan rescue program ended in August after a final payment was made in June. Since 2010, € 289 billion has been paid out to the Greeks in emergency loans, but now it is over; the acute debt crisis is over.

• According to Abbreviationfinder: GRC is an three letter acronym for Greece.

Another gratifying message came in August: Greece’s unemployment rate was below 20% for the first time in seven years. In August 2017, it was at 21.7%, now at 19.5%. However, it is still the highest figure in the EU, and youth unemployment continues to be alarmingly high, 40%. The proportion of unemployed women is 25%.

Macedonia’s parliament approved an amendment to its constitution in October which means that the Republic of Northern Macedonia can be renamed. The name change ever since Macedonia was founded in 1991 has been a stumbling block and a requirement from Greece to approve its neighbor in the north to apply for membership in the EU and NATO. As a result of the decision, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias resigned in protest; Prime Minister Tsipras then took over the leadership of the Foreign Ministry himself.

More than 90 people were killed in July in what is suspected were fires, including in the city of Mati north of Athens. It is believed that the fires may have been started by criminals who have been out to plunder abandoned homes.

According to statistics for 2017, migrant flows to Greece decreased significantly; only one-sixth was received compared to 2016. The reason is the EU’s refugee agreement with Turkey and the fact that migrants sought new ways, to Spain via Morocco and Algeria. During the year, however, reports that the flow of refugees via the country road between Turkey and northwestern Greece increased. In June, 6,800 refugees were reported to have taken that route – comparing to 5,500 in total in 2017. But that does not prevent several tragedies from taking place on the Aegean Sea. In March, for example, at least 16 people, six of them children, drowned when their smuggling boat crashed off the island of Agathonisi south of Samos.

However, the UN Refugee Organization (UNHCR) announced in November that the number of migrants to Greece via the northeast border with Turkey during the year was 11,000, an increase of 40% compared to 2017. Many of these are unaccompanied children and young people.

Another stream that does not decrease, however, is tourism. During the year, over 30 million tourists came to Greece and the Greek island world. That is three times as many as the country’s residents. For example, Thera (Santorini) has long been difficult to cope with the tourist storm and has therefore limited the number of cruise ships and visitors to the island.

Athens – newer architecture

In the period 1830-1930, Greek architecture was characterized by a romantic neoclassicism. The castle, which now houses the parliament, was built in 1836-42 by the German architect Friedrich von Gärtner.

The Dane Christian Hansen was for a couple of decades (1833-50) Athens’ leading architect with the university (1839-60) and the cathedral Mitropolis (sm the German architect Eduard Schaubert, 1842-62) as well as private houses, schools, churches, hospitals etc. who became role models for the architecture of the time. Theophilus Hansen’s early works are inspired by his brother Chr. Hansen’s, eg the Observatory (1842-46) and Dimitrios’ house, the current Hotel Grande Bretagne (1842-43, later rebuilt).

In the 1840’s, several buildings with Byzantine inspiration were built, such as Christian Hansen’s Eye Clinic and a number of churches. Theophilus Hansen’s mature Greek style is pompously expressed in the academy (1859-87), the exhibition building Zappio (1874-88) and the national library (1885-92).

His pupil, the German architect Ernst Ziller, erected in the period 1870-1923 numerous public and private buildings in Athens and the province; he stood for a Greek “renaissance” in European tradition with eg Heinrich Schliemann’s house “Ilion” (1878). Ziller began in 1869 the excavation of the Panathenaic Stadium (330/29 BC), which was rebuilt according to his plans by Anastasios Metaxas and inaugurated at the first Olympics in 1896.

The population growth in the 1920’s radically changed the shape and architecture of the city. Many historic buildings were demolished to make way for functionalist apartment blocks and concrete office buildings. After World War II, Athens grew without balance between city and surrounding landscape.

Among the city’s newer notable buildings is the U.S. Embassy, ​​designed by Walter Gropius and H. Morse Payne jr. (1957-61), the Conservatory of I. Despotopoulos (1969), the Supreme Court of J. Rizos and D. Katarropoulos (1973) and the Athens Music House, Megaron (1991), of Tsonos.

Museums

In 1835, the Temple of Hephaestus was converted into a museum by Christian Hansen and E. Schaubert; the collection was moved in 1874 to the National Archaeological Museum, which is the most important museum in the world for ancient Greek art with large collections of sculptures, vases and finds from the Attica, Mycenae and Cyclades.

A modest museum on the Acropolis was replaced in 1865 by the Acropolis Museum (see Acropolis in Athens). The significant finds from Agora have been exhibited in Attalos II’s reconstructed stoa since 1956, while the Oeberlaender Museum (1938) houses finds from the ancient burial site at Kerameikos.

The Byzantine Museum was newly renovated in 1928 in the former private villa “Ilissia”, built 1842-46 by Christian Hansen.

There are collections on modern Greek history and folklore in the National History Museum, established in 1960 in the old parliament building (1858-74), and in the Benaki Museum. The City Museum was inaugurated in 1980; The National Pina Library (Sutsos Museum) from 1966 houses modern Greek art.