What I can see

The composer Vassilis Tsitsanis lived here during his stay in Thessaloniki, between 1942 and 1946. Together with his brother-in-law, he opened the famous Ouzo tavern Tsitsanis, which was located at the opposite side of the road and continued to operate after Tsitsanis moved to Athens.

What I can't see

Vassilis Tsitsanis was the one who brought the “marginalized” rebetiko songs to the then bourgeois salons. The period he lived in Thessaloniki was very harsh, as he experienced the German occupation, famine, the extermination of the city’s Jews and the early years of the civil war. This period, however, was also his most creative, as he wrote many of his most important songs. These songs praised simple, everyday things and routine habits, which we often look down on, until we realize in difficult times – such as the periods of World War II and the civil war – how important they are. A bust in his memory has been erected on Dimitriou Poliorkitou Street in the the area of Ano Poli (Upper Town).

Info

• Address: 21 Pavlou Mela St.

Bibliography