Eighty six years have passed since the Greek daily newspaper "Evening Post" was first released in Constantinople. Along with the Turkish Cumhuriyet, they are both Turkey's oldest newspapers. The Evening Post used to sell 30,000 papers, which was more than the Turkish newspapers used to sell, as the Greeks were numerous and they used to read a lot, due to their high educational level. Nowadays it sells 600 papers, 90% of which are being sold in Constantinople and the rest of them in Greece. As the number of the Greek-speaking families in Constantinople is equal to the Evening Post's circulation, this newspaper could be easily included in the Guinness Book, since it's being read by the 99,9% of its potential readers.

It went through the clashing

The founder of the Evening Post was Constantine Vasiliadis, a pharmacist, and its first chief editor was the legendary journalist, Kavalieros Markouizos, a Levantine Greek, who established the newspaper's first motto with a phrase said by Victor Hugo: "New times impose new duties". Markouizos became autonomous in 1927 in order to publish his own combative journal "The Newspaper", which bothered the Turks who deported him in 1950. Markouizos who was a fighter, died in Greece being very poor and all alone. Gregory Giaverides, his successor at the Evening Post, knew how to meander and rescued the Evening Post by leading it through the clashing.

Until 2002, the Evening Post was being published by the doctor George Antosoglou, who was bedridden and unable to keep the paper alive during his last years. He used to sell only 80 papers a day back then and its material included announcements of the Patriarchate, crossword puzzles and food recipes.

After Antosoglou's death, in 2002, the newspaper's publishing passed into the hands of Michael Vasiliadis, a journalist who had been previously a columnist and director of the political newspaper "Forward". Vasiliadis had been accused in 1964 for the disruption of Turkey's national unity and for propaganda in favour of Hellenism. The indictment specifically said: "Rum propagandasi yapmak".

The trial kept being postponed and it lasted 10 years, but in the end he was found innocent. After that, he moved to Athens, where he published the newspaper "Eptálofos" for years. As his soul longed for Constantinople, he made a total recall and many personal sacrifices and took over the Evening Post which was moribund.

It can be read at a draught

Michael Vasiliadis lives with a pension that he takes from Greece and sees the Evening Post's rescue as his own return to life. Until recently he made it with paper craft and an offset print, while now with the Greek journalist trade union's help he got a special paging program, a printer and a digital camera. His purpose is to make the Evening Post get in all the Greek homes remaining in Constantinople. It is an exemplary newspaper, containing the most important Greek and international political news and it can be read at a draught.

After his return to Constantinople, Michael VasiliadIs established a new motto for the Evening Post: "Nobody's born and nobody dies without the Evening Post". In other words, there is no Greek in Constantinople, the birth or the death of whom won't be announced in the Evening Post's columns.

Three years after his repatriation in Constantinople in 2002, his son Minas followed him, in order to help him save the Evening Post. As a young journalist and a specialist in computer science, he has given wings to the paper and he's glad for his new job. Whether he's in Greece or in Turkey, Minas treats all people in good faith and as distinct personalities, without any generalization or aphorism. His parents who have been born in Constantinople are well educated and they didn't poison him with fanaticism against the Turks.

As a child living in Athens, Minas also spoke some Turkish, but as he grew up the language weakened inside him and he finally forgot it. He might have forgotten the Turkish vocabulary, but he kept in his soul the musicality of the Turkish language, that's why when he moved to Constantinople he had no problem to communicate in Turkish again. He thinks it is an easy language and that if Greek grammar is like a cubic equation, Turkish grammar is like an equation of first degree.

On the internet

With Minas's help, the Evening Post can now be read on the internet by people living outside Turkey. Every day at 10 o' clock in the morning it appears in colour on the subscribers' screens, who are in their majority Greeks or children of Greeks, who have related Constantinople to their grandma's tales and they mentally sigh for it.

A significant example of the Evening Post's internet spread is the following: Last year, when the Greek Athletic Club Tatavla, which was founded in 1896 and is the oldest athletic club in Turkey, was anointed champion in basketball for young men, the news immediately found its place in the Evening Post's columns. While the hardcopy reached the readers after 2 o' clock, at 10 o' clock the club's phone rang in Constantinople and a man's voice trembling with emotion congratulated the champions. The man also emphasised on the fact that he himself used to be a player of the same team 50 years ago and they had also been champions. When asked where he was calling from and how he learned the news so soon, he said that he was calling from Australia and that he had read the news on the internet.

That's what Minas succeeded in with his taste and his expertise. He got people living abroad learn the news earlier than people living in Constantinople. A child with Greek parents, born and raised in Athens, manages to move the souls of Constantinople over the world.

Priceless archive

Another qualitative newspaper, the "ECHO", is also being released in Constantinople by Andrew Rompopoulos. The Greek papers must not vanish in Constantinople because the entire Greek history has gone through their pages. Their priceless archive is being slowly destroyed, because the paper that was being used back then was of a bad quality. Costas Gavroglou, the Athens University professor from Constantinople, has also been selflessly helpful to the salvage of a big part of the Evening Post's archive, but others must follow his example.

It would be a jewel for a Greek Sunday newspaper to have an embedded insert of a Constantinople's paper from time to time. That would awaken memories and consciences of benefactors who could help Constantinople's Hellenism stay alive. Reinforcement with basic equipment would also be of a great help for the Greek newspapers of Constantinople.

But the greatest life injection for the pages of Hellenism would be the subscription of people who were born in Constantinople but live in Greece, or of other sensitive Greeks. They could send their e-mail address to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and be satisfied with sweet nostalgia giving only 25 cents per day. With this small assistance they will firstly help to the losses cover of the edition and secondly to the enrichment and improvement of the paper's material.

TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS

SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

MORE PHOTOS

The paper of the 20th of July 1974, the day of the Turkish landing in Cyprus.

Echo of Andrew Rompopoulos is the second Greek newspaper of Constantinople.

The offices of the Evening Post have not changed since the paper's first day of release.

The Evening Post's offices are in the Stoa of Syria at Istiklal Avenue.

The Evening Post’s subscribers are few but very devoted.

The offices are beside the picturesque railway station of the legendary Pera boulevard.

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