Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos paid a visit to Alexandria on Monday following an invitation by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to attend a collaborative event of the Greek, Egyptian and Cypriot diaspora.
Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades is also attending the event, called “Nostos, The Return.”
Visiting the site of the new library of Alexandria, which commemorates the famed Alexandria Library of the Hellenistic age, Pavlopoulos said the new library “is traversing its own brilliant and creative path, one shared by modern Egypt.”
Greece, he added, “always was and always will be present in this uninterrupted trajectory through time.”
Meeting with the Greek diaspora in the city, the president referred to the visit as “a pilgrimage on behalf of the Greek people” to a vibrant community of the diaspora that has provided Greece with many of its benefactors and world literature figures like poet Constantine Cavafy and Stratis Tsirkas.
A lot of Greeks and Cypriots used to live in Egypt for decades; however, for several political, economic and social reasons, they left the country and headed back to their homes by the end of the 1970s.
The effects and impact that Greeks left in Cairo and Alexandria in particular are still clearly noticeable through their buildings, architecture, famous stores, music, cinema, literature and unforgettable memories.
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