March 24, 2013

The school parade in Athens

Earlier, hudreds of students marched in the annual school parade in view of tomorrow's Greek National Day.

Boys and girls in traditional costumes...

...or wearing blue and white marched in the applause of people gathered in Panepistimiou Avenue to attend the school parade.

<

This year though, the parade was shorter and people was hardly more than the 4.000 policemen that circled the whole area.

In fact, it was very difficult to reach the parade 'cause most streets in the center were closed. Security measures were extremely high in order to avoid possible protests and attacks against politicians as it happened in previous parades. Only officials were allowed to reach Syntagma and simple people had only the chance to watch the end of the parade.In many cases, the police did not even allow to take pictures.

Tonia , Eleanna, Liza and Constantina (left to right) also tried to take some photos.

They all study photography and were supposed to photograph the parade as asked by their professor.

" I took great photos! Just feet and flags!" says Tonia ironically.

" Policemen told us that we have to have special license" adds Eleanna.

"All these refer to other times that no one wants to remember" comments Tonia.

"It's extreme but very interesting as a picture. All this is so new" tells me Constantina.

"People don't dare to hold our national flags 'cause they're scared of being confused with

nationalists extremists" says Giorgos.

" I paid 100 euros to get the license to be here. I sell each flag for one euro and I buy it for half. I'm not even going to make what I paid for".

" At least Cyprus dared to say NO. They are brave people. Even if they pay hard for it, Europe deserved it. But there's so much more that we can't even imagine".

"I only hope that this will end soon. Our children need to have future".

Currently, every Greek child is born with debt over 30.000 euros.

No comments:

Post a Comment