Rigillis Street

What I can see

In Rigillis or Pavlou Mela Square, which is located at the junction of Rigillis Street and Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, there are some monumental sculptures, such as the bust of Petros Saroglou and the Monument to the Fallen in Imia. The second is dedicated to the dead of the episode between Greece and Turkiye in the southeast Aegean sea (1996). Every year, on this anniversary, the Monument to the Fallen in Imia is a rallying point for nationalists and neo-Nazis, most of them supporters of the neo-Nazi criminal organization Golden Dawn, whose key members are in prison for murder and other crimes. But Rigillis Street is more interesting for its architecture. The neoclassical Diomedes- Psycha house at number 18, the Saroglou Mansion, the impressive interwar apartment building at the corner of Rigillis and Minmermou Streets, the post-war apartment buildings and the neoclassical building with eclectic elements of ERT at the corner of Rigillis and Mourouzi Streets.

What I can't see

The house at number 18 was the residence of Alexandros Diomedes and Ioulia Psycha, in the then isolated and rural Rigillis Street. It was almost demolished several times. It is also connected to the then “new palace” and today’s Presidential Palace, through a tunnel. This building is the historic seat of New Democracy, the largest conservative party in Greece. On the 1936 New Year’s Eve, King George II stopped at Rigillis Square in the centre of which was the traffic policeman on the special podium. The king left gifts (sweets and wine) on the podium. For many years, the citizens imitated the king and left gifts to the city’s traffic policemen on every New Year’s Eve.

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