Nissiotis’ end tears a page off Athenian history

One could say that it’s just another store closing down. Why would I care for a silverware store at a time when tens of businesses shut down every day, all victims of the current crisis?

The difference is that the closure of this store on the corner of Stadiοu and Kolokotroni str, is like tearing a page off the book of this city’s history.

But let’s take things from the beginning and travel back two centuries in 1886 when Nikolas Nissiotis, a successful silversmith of the time, decides to leave Pringipos and Constantinople and come to Athens. A few years later, the craftsman opens a shop on Kolokotroni str, behind the building of the then-parliament. It's 1899 and "Nissiotis Silverware" is housed in one of the most central buildings of the capital. Ilion Palace, one of the first hotels in Athens, is dominant above the store, which socialites frequented for drinks, and the ladies would visit the ground floor to admire the masterpieces of the craftsman of silver from Asia Minor.

Over the years, the store became a symbol for the capital's commercial market. "In 1913, Nikolas Nissiotis' was the first Athens store to install crystal doors and an inside elevator, which becomes the subject of discussions around the center", says the last owner of the business, Mara Nissiotis, to protothema.gr.

Photographs by Petros Poulidis’ collection, now belonging to the ERT digital archive, show Nissiotis’ sign on Kolokotroni str at the beginning of the last century, when horse-drawn wagons were still circulating in Athens. The company had already been passed on to his son Leonidas who, following in the footsteps of his father, continued the tradition of keeping the company at the top of the Athenian commercial elite. During Leonidas Nissiotis' time, the store would come to employ 35 people, a record for the era, and the company would provide shelter for many refugees from Asia Minor, who came to Athens after the disaster of ’22.

Leonidas Nissiotis passed away at a young age but left the now famous brand to his young boys, Nikos and Stavros, as their legacy. Despite their age, they had to carry that heavy load. They were the ones who had to keep the crystal doors at Kolokotroni str wide open even during the dark days of the German occupation. "My husband and his brother never closed the shop, not even during the years when the Germans were in Athens", remembers Mara Nissiotis, the wife of Stavros Nissiotis.

And these doors that remained open during the years of the ultimate poverty and hunger, which decimated the population of Athens from ’41 to ’44, are now closed because of the crisis, the IMF and the memorandum.

Just a few days ago, after her husband’s death and not being able to bear the burden of the economic problems, Maria Nissioti decided to close down the business.

"By pulling down the shutters on this place, which remained open from 1899 until today, I felt like I lost my husband all over again", confesses Mara Nissiotis, who in recent months has barely managed to maintain the historic store with only two employees. "I could not bear this any longer, I lost my sleep, I lost everything", she adds.

Today, a simple sign on the once-glittering shop window thanks the Athenian customers who had honored this store for decades. Whatever the future holds for this window, it is certain that one more piece of Athenian history has faded away.