‘The last fortress’: historic Athens cafe closes as countercultural area gentrifies
Source: The Guardian ·
Mouria coffeehouse unable to renew lease in Exarchia, known for leftwing solidarity, resistance and radicalismIt has been the hangout of writers, artists, poets and politicians, doctors and lawyers, radicals and revolutionaries for as long as anyone can remember. And for 44 years, Christos Vanas, the proprietor of Mouria, has let them all in.Every day at 7am, the taciturn former waiter has been…
From the source
It has been the hangout of writers, artists, poets and politicians, doctors and lawyers, radicals and revolutionaries for as long as anyone can remember. And for 44 years, Christos Vanas, the proprietor of Mouria, has let them all in. Every day at 7am, the taciturn former waiter has been the first man to step inside the historic cafe in Exarchia, the heart of leftwing Athens. It is a ritual he has kept punctiliously, opening up the famous gathering place before he himself has had his first coffee. “Only Saturdays are different,” says his daughter Areti, drawing on a Karelia, the aromatic Greek cigarette that, like Mouria, has been around for more than a century. “By 5am, he is here serving tsipouro and other [alcoholic] spirits to warm up the stallholders of the street market outside.” But this weekend will be Vanas’s last. After a send-off expected to last into the small hours, the cafe’s large, iron-framed doors will shut forever on Sunday when patrons walk out of the…