3 September Avenue is always gloomy in the evenings when the shops are closed. However, the Egyptian Greek Association Hall is bustling with life, like a little beacon of nostalgia in the dark heart of the city, which, in addition to being an event venue, also has amazing Egyptian cuisine (a well-maintained Athenian mystery). On Wednesday night, the hall was literally packed with elegant old ladies, well-dressed gentlemen, and young people who kept some of the stories of their grandfathers. Kind people, all of them an urban legacy etched in manners and faces for generations, came to listen to Distinguished Haverford, Pennsylvania Professor of History Alexander Kitroev talk about his recently published book, The Greeks. and the education of younger Egypt.” And how could there not be a huge attendance, because on its pages they follow the settlement, elevation and removal of our compatriots from the country of the Nile? Their hasty and forced departure may have occurred in the 1950s, but the Egyptians do close their family history in their hearts: , Egyptians” were the first words of Giorgos Makris, who took over the cultural activities of the Ampeteion School Association and introduced the author.

An Alexandrian by birth, a native of Chios, Kitrof devoted many books to the Hellenism of this country, as well as the United States, where he taught for many decades. The edition is a translation into Greek by Argyris Papasiriopoulos, and the original text was published in the American University of Cairo Publications in English and Arabic. It condenses the entire historical path, which began in the 19th century and ended under Nasser, who pursued an extensive policy of nationalization in the economy, in which the Greeks succeeded. At the same time, however, it made it extremely difficult to obtain Egyptian citizenship, with the result that thousands of our compatriots, who at one time numbered 100,000 in Alexandria, Cairo and Port Said, could no longer stay there. Somehow, the largest, most prosperous and most diverse community of foreigners in Egypt has dwindled to just 3,000 today.

In his speech, Kitroev (who did not even have time to explain where his Russian-sounding surname came from) mentioned his grandparents and father in Alexandria to come to the beginning of the Greek presence, which, of course, happened in the time of Mohammed Ali. The founder of the last dynasty of Egypt, Kavaliotis invited many of our compatriots to contribute to the reform of this country through cotton, tobacco, shipping and trade. The most touching thing is that the Egyptians, even at a time when they considered foreigners the source of their own backwardness, did not feel hostility towards us. And the Greeks, of course, never considered themselves colonizers and often through their local and diplomatic authorities expressed support for the just demands of the Egyptians for independence.

At the end of the speech, questions and touching comments about this place, which remains home in the hearts of many Greeks, rained down. The evening ended with an amazing cumbeba (meatballs with semolina and minced meat) and hot falafel cooked by Mr. Reda in the kitchen.