İNANILMAZ GÜZELLİKTE BİR SÜRPRİZ DAHA

Bir saat önce e-posta kutuma düşmüş.

Ben demiyor muyum Yanya blogum uluslararası olmaya başladı diye

:-)))

"Dear Bülent,

My name is Stergios Nastopoulos and I was born in Konitsa (1954). I am a teacher of Physics in Yanya (Yiannena or Yiannina, in Greek), where I lived for about 50 years. I discovered your blog about my/our town by accident, just trying to find resources from Turkey about my town. It is really impressive to find a blog from Turkey about Yanya. I was so enthuasiastic about that immediately I tried to understand what is written in it using Google translator, not a sufficient translation, of course, but I understood how much you love the place and town. Unfortunately the modern town does not preserve our memories as the late 30 years most of the old bulidings, Greek, Jewish or Turkish were destroyed to build new houses without any aestetic criteria. I'm quite impressed about how much you love the town of your forefathers, so do I. In order your blog get known to my compatriots and to Greek audience I published a post in the blog:http://ligapola.blogspot.com/ (lig' ap' ola= just a few from all, in Greek), which is one I keep with my colleague and friend Miltos Sakellariou. I don't know how much Greek you understand, just take a look. I believe in friendship and peace between the Greek and Turkish people, even in times that it was very difficult. I have to inform you too, that last year in April 2008 a delegation of Turkish teachers and students from Urla came here and presented a play written by the students in "Kamperio" theatre, with teachers and students from Germany and Lithuania, implementing a EU project, called Comenius. The students were hosted by my students, one student by my family. It was the first time in our towns History that a theatrical play from Turkey was presented before a Greek audience. We had great moments together, drank a glass of ouzo with my Turkish friend in the Lake's island and renew our friendship. Really great moments! All our project works are hosted in the blog: http://stagemestageyouthproject.blogspot.com/ where all material is collected by me. It is quite touching to see Turkish and Greek students, leaving each other with tears in their eyes.

Na ise panta kala,

Friendly

Stergios

P.S. The irony of the whole thing is that my grandfather, Stergios, who had his origin from a village of Pogoni, Dolo, of Epirus, had lived and died and buried in Istanbul, where he had a butchershop in Yenikoy, I think. He had the Turkish citezenship and served in the Turkish Army, I'm not sure when and where, but I have a photo of him with the military uniform and a gun. I never met him, but my father who has passed away now, was born in Istanbul (1921) and came back here with his mother. My grandfather died alone during the German occupation of Greece, when no communication with Turkey was possible."