We were planning to interview some Greek tour operators about the financial crisis down at the vast port of Piraeus this morning, but as our taxi pulled up at the harbour, I had a sudden change of heart. Boats to distant Greek islands bobbed in the water and beckoned in the sun. Which island was closest? Aegina. Population? 7,000 or so. Only 40 minutes by hydrofoil. Famous for its pistachio nuts, or so says the guidebook. Why not?
So we turned to our perplexed Greek producer and told her to unpick everything she’d planned. Aegina seemed too good to miss. And so it proved.
On the boat, I got talking to Clemence Pitsaki, an accountant for a clothing business. Four people from her team of thirteen had lost their jobs in the last month. So Clemence was escaping to Aegina. Escaping from Athens, a capital which is boiling at the best of times, and is now seething with rage at the government’s pay cuts and tax hikes.
Aegina’s pretty waterfront is remarkably unspoiled given its proximity to the bustling Big Olive that is Athens. You could have filmed scenes from the feel good “Mamma Mia” movie here. Apart from the Greek motor scooters, a cursed invention, ripping up and down the harbour as the old men in cafes try to sip their coffee in peace.
John Goumas was sitting with a merry band of seamen at one table, all retired sailors from the largest merchant navy anywhere in the world. They swapped stories about the supertankers they crewed and the pirates they escaped off Singapore, and seemed remarkably unperturbed by the 30 per cent cut in their pensions which they expect to kick in any day now.
“There is no solution”, said Mr Goumas, laughing it off, before concluding that the best thing was to fishing in his little boat. And a little Greek philosophy for these hard times goes like this: the best things about life here in the Aegean, the sea and the sun, are still free.
Back in Athens, council workers and rubbish collectors went out on strike today. Though at Aegina’s town hall, everyone seems to have ignored their union and shown up for work. Even if the government yesterday froze all public sector pay for three years. Even if the cancelling of holiday bonuses, which top up low incomes, amount to a savage 30 per cent pay cut.
Panagiota Katsigkra said she had a job to do – parking fines to collect, along with taxes for the use of burial plots in Aegina’s cemeteries. She didn’t see the point of going on strike. She is going on a diet instead. And growing her own vegetables in this new age of job insecurity.
There are still the famous pistachio nuts for sale on the waterfront, expensive and delicious and, I noted, sold to me with a proper receipt – though tax evasion is a Greek national pastime which I can’t see ending easily, especially if tourism revenue is down, and if Greeks are losing their jobs in droves.
Yannis Voulgaris is a travel agent, a former drummer in a band, and claims unemployment benefit during the winter months when the tourists don’t come.
The worst thing about this crisis, he said, was not knowing how long it would last, but surely longer than the government’s predictions. Will VAT up at 23 per cent and the rest of the latest austerity measures really swell the empty public purse? Or is something far more drastic waiting in the wings, namely the shedding of jobs wholesale?
I asked him about the new 10 per cent hike in cigarette tax. “That’s good!” he laughed. “Now I am going to quit!”
There is anger in Aegina – with politicians, bankers and the corrupt super rich. Yet 40 minutes from Athens, the mood is different.
And though Greek newspaper editorials today mourned the end of the traditional way of life in favour of Thatcherite economic liberalisation, it certainly doesn’t feel that way here. Not yet anyway. Maybe there are some things about a Greek’s outlook on the world which the IMF can’t take away.