The businessmen of the city sent a letter requesting that the floating Maritime Museum A/T VELOS remain in Thessaloniki and be located on the 1st Pier of the port, to the Deputy Minister of the Interior (Macedonia-Thrace), Stathis Konstantinidis, and the Regional Governor of Central Macedonia, Apostolos Tzitzikostas , the outgoing mayor of Thessaloniki, Konstantinos Zervas and the president and managing director of OLTH SA, Athanasios Liagos.

“As representatives of the business community of Thessaloniki, with a keen interest in the overall development and progress of the region, we consider it imperative that the Floating Maritime Museum A/T VELOS, in Thessalonikiin a safe place on the city’s waterfront and ideally, if possible, on the 1st pier of the port which, for years, has been contributing to the cultural events of our region”, points out the EBETH in its letter, which is signed by its president chamber, Ioannis Masoutis, head of the Central Union of Chambers of Greece (KEEE).

The sending of the letter was decided following informal talks that have started on the possibility of moving the Floating Maritime Museum A/T VELOS, from Thermaikos Gulf to Flisvosas mentioned in today’s announcement by the ΕΒΘΥ and notes that “from the first moment of its installation on the beach of Thessaloniki, this historic ship was enthusiastically embraced by the people of Thessalonica, but also by the people of Northern Greece in general, constituting a historical attraction for our city and attraction of a large number of visitors”.

In its letter, EBET states that based on the data collected by the agency from the crew of the vessel, since September 2019, when the ship began welcoming visitors and until today, it has attracted 370,000 people. “This is a particularly high traffic, if you even consider that the period coincided with the two-year lockdown of the pandemic. In comparison, it is noted that the corresponding number of visitors during the previous 20 years, when the ship was anchored in Attica, was only about 20,000 people”, underlines the EBETH in its letter.

He even notes that more than half of his visitors are young people and children, who are given the opportunity to visit a unique living monument of the Second World War and the Anti-dictatorship Action of the Navy and to be nurtured with naval traditions, the modern history and the struggles of the Greeks at sea.