flipping through it Photo album her Dionysius Alexiadis which was released shortly before Easter Publications of capons, you are overwhelmed by consistent and completely contradictory emotions. Surprise, sadness, nostalgia, to name the strongest. However, you quickly realize that you are holding a unique photographic document in your hands. images of Athens from the first (and most severe) quarantine, you return exactly three years ago, to that unprecedented state that gave Dionysia Alexiadis a unique (literally) opportunity: to photograph the Athenian center in a way that she will never be able to do it again in the future, under any other circumstances; to be free from human presence, but also from everything that constitutes urban normality and experience. A city without passersby, wheeled vehicles, visitors, like thousands of other cities in the world that find themselves at the forefront of the health crisis day after day. Actually not a city.

The lens moves to the limits of the Athenian center, from Syntagma Square to the Acropolis and from Thisios to Omonia and Lycabettus. Thus, there are 12 different sections – routes that Nikos Vatopoulos, a colleague from Kathimerini, traces in his texts. “Dionysia Alexiadis bequeaths to us the chronicle of the deserted capital of 2020,” he writes in an introductory note, describing the itinerary of the waiting city: “A city that looked like an illusory theater set. The silence became sound, and the absence filled the senses. For a city like Athens, a city that traditionally lives in a regime defined by freedom of life, often to the detriment of rules and laws, the ordeal of two months of immobility seemed like a transition into a different state of self. -awareness.”

I ask Dionysia Alexiadis how the idea for the book was born and how she remembers those days with the distance of time. “I live in Psychiko and it was very interesting for me to learn about the center of Athens. What would the city look like in these strange conditions? Of course, any movement was forbidden, but one day I took a chance and walked seven kilometers to Syntagma Square. I had my camera with me. Nobody stopped me, probably because I always chose narrow streets, not boulevards. What I felt is impossible to describe, it was beyond my understanding. I repeated my daring walks and gradually not only came to terms with the unfamiliar scenery and lack of noise, but also became a way of escaping from reality. Every day a different city opened up to me and gave meaning to the “madness” of those days. The peace and light of Athens became an antidote and a medicine to help me survive.”

The release of the book coincides with the completion of three years since the first general quarantine. We reached out to photographer Giorgis Gerolimbos and architects Rene Sakellarid and Panos Dragonas, three people closely associated with the city, and tried to find their own memories of the strangest spring we can remember. Their answers are of particular interest and reflect the depth and intensity of this unique experience for all of us.

Giorgis GerolimposPhotographer
Like the photos of Nakano

For years, I have admired Masataka Nakano’s photo monograph Nobody from Tokyo. Using long exposure filters, the creator eliminated all human presence in a metropolis of 14 million people. I truly envy this portfolio and have been wanting to do it in Athens for years. When the pandemic began, the city was empty.

During their supply trips, Athens was reminded of Nakano’s photographs. And then, when the city was empty, I decided not to take pictures, since I didn’t have to do anything to make the pictures interesting. More than two years later, having lost people due to the pandemic, I do not miss this period at all. I’m so, so happy that it’s all over.

Rena SakellaridouArchitect
Yes, I miss those creepy Athens

I remember the first Sunday of quarantine, walking in the morning in Vasilissis Sofias. One. The municipal brigade sprayed disinfectant on the sidewalks. An unprecedented feeling… I remember, on Sunday morning, when the Acropolis opened, I found myself alone on a rock. Just the guards and me in a magical place. Never ever…

I remember endless walks around the Acropolis, the city that I was now discovering all the time. How to forget such moments?

When you thought time stretched out to infinity to accommodate everything. And the deserted city became the place that allowed contact “from the inside”, through the fragile uniqueness of those days. Yes, I miss those creepy Athens.

Panos Dragonasarchitect and professor at the University of Patras.
Running in an empty city

The spring of 2020 has turned all ideas about city everyday life upside down. Athenian apartments hosted events for which they were never intended. Forgotten balconies made sense as safety valves for ever-increasing tension.

But the public space of the city has changed the most. The streets, empty of cars, were filled with clumsily walking pedestrians, as well as runners, many runners who seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to take over the Athenian streets.

The memory I want to keep from that time is running through an empty city. Running from Lycabettus to the Acropolis and back. We run through an empty, frightened city. Run further and further every day.