Cavafy: Inauguration of his renovated house in Alexandria

The opening of the renovated Cavafy House in Alexandria, Egypt will take place this weekend, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

The Cavafy House – the place where K.P. Cavafy lived most of his life and created dozens of the works that made him a world poet has been restored and remodeled to show the image of the residence as it was during the years he lived poet, to illuminate his relationship with the city of Alexandria and the impact of his work to this day, but also to take us back in time.

The Cavafy House – Museum, where the Alexandrian poet lived the last years of his life, is located in Alexandria, Egypt, at no. 4 of K. Cavafy street, as the former Sharm el-Sheikh street was renamed in honor of the poet.

The restoration and promotion of the house where K. P. Cavafis lived was done by the Onassis Foundation, in collaboration with the Hellenic Cultural Foundation, which also manages it.

The Cavafy House – or otherwise the Cavafy Museum – in Alexandria was inaugurated in 1992 on the initiative of the historian and writer Kostis Moskoff (1939-98), an energetic and charismatic man of letters and science, as well as Educational Attaché at the Greek Embassy in Cairo.

During his stay in Egypt, Moscow created the Cavafy Museum in order to support poetry studies through the Cavafy Conferences, which he established and are still held in Cairo and Alexandria, alongside other artistic events.

Although the poet’s furniture, which was in his apartment, was sold by his heirs, it has been reconstructed with the help of photographs.

Cavafy’s personal library was rescued intact by Professor Georgios Savvidis.

The Cavafy Museum preserves: rare bibliographic material, translations of Cavafy’s poetry in 20 languages, manuscripts, his books and more than 3,000 articles and papers written about his poetry.

Relics of the poet, his iconostasis and portraits have also been collected.

A room of the House has been allocated and functions as a Stratis Tsirka room, in which photographic material and copies of his books are exhibited.

Photos – information: Onassis Foundation, wikipedia, Hellenic Cultural Foundation