Through a bleak picture of abandonment, anyone can relive their own past, adding their own black-and-white images of another era. And if he observes better, the memories will be lifted from the depths of the mind, while the colors that had once faded will take even for a while their own intense palette of memory.
The truth is that behind the image of the abandoned factory in Stavroupoli of Xanthi, there is a very long story that concerns the Greek industry, reports Travel Inspiration.
Funds, relocations of factories to remote areas, compensation, bankruptcies, and much more that few know and many ignore. So the story behind the factory JOHN-PHIL-HELLAS SA, is not much different from some others with the same course and especially the same epilogue.
But reality does not cease to cause sadness.
Ioannis Filippidis – “Mr. John” for his friends – was a self-made businessman from refugee parents.
He created various textile companies and pioneered making the first carpets in Greece with MARATHON carpet and JOHN-PHIL-HELLAS SA. in Tavros, Athens. Carpets in 7 different types, printed carpets, curtains, corridors of different colors with high quality for the season and of course competitive prices, with an admirable progress until 1975.
However, in September of the same year, the fire that broke out at the factory in Tavros, could not be extinguished by the fire brigade, since almost all of its forces were in Ilia where large fires had broken out.
The relatively small compensation from the insurance companies, the investment incentives of the then government for relocation to remote areas, led Ioannis Filippidis to create a new factory in northern Greece. The new jobs created in the remote Stavroupoli of Xanthi with its 400 permanent residents, at a time when even the movement of any vehicle required a military permit, gave new air to the area. Almost the entire village worked in the carpet factory, while the young children of the workers discovered new toys to spend their time, toys that the factory itself gave as a gift to the workers during the holidays.
But in the late ’80s, the last act of bankruptcy of the factory was played. Who really went bankrupt since the closure of the factory is another chapter. But, thirty whole years later, the carcass of the Stavroupoli factory, in its darkness, still stands there, reminiscent of another era; we were not able to understand them, but today we understand how valuable they were…
Video source: Travel Inspiration
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