Homeland-Diaspora Relations in Flux: Greece and Greeks abroad at times of Crisis

Presenting paper

From popular markets, to Russian products stores, to “big business”: Economies and ethics inside Pontic Greek communities of Thessaloniki after the Soviet experience

This paper aims to discuss the development of economic activities by Greek post-soviet repatriates from the countries of the ex-USSR in Greece. It is the fruit of an ongoing post-doctoral research undertaken at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, supported by EU funding. The post Soviet Greek repatriates, is just a small representation of the global post-soviet diaspora. The much anticipated coming in Greece, the "eternal patria", was accompanied by the development of survival strategies, which soon gave their place to livelihood strategies, according to the norms and patterns of economical behavior of the local middle classes. Our main target is the study of emerging characteristics, the evolution of the above-mentioned forms of economic activity. Thus, starting from the first local markets, to family businesses, notably in tourist and private insurance sectors,leading to the formation of transnational firms by Greek-Russian businessmen (notably Ivan Savvidis and Boris Mouzenidis). These firms would acquire much respect and admiration by the Pontic Greek diaspora, mostly by poor or middle-class people, as they kept recruiting mainly from the low-skilled workforce among diaspora networks. Representing the "avant-garde" of the economic activity of the repatriates, they marked a passage from the "horizontal economies of the poor" which dominated initially the economy of the Pontic diaspora, to forms closer to "local" businesses regarding the structure and rationality of entrepreneurship. Finally, as we will show, there are different strategies of the repatriate integration into the dominant patterns of economic behavior of the local Greek businesses. The key aim is to show the ways Pontic Greek economic activity was transformed. From their initial arrival in Greece in the late 80's which allowed for the evolution of a complex set of economic activities, often based on moral premises and values predicated on local ethic networks, they came to include today a mixture of both capitalist and pre-capitalist socio-economic rationalities.

Author(s) bio

Anastasios Grigorakis is an Anthropology post-doctoral researcher at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece working on a research program that focuses on the economic networks of the Greek-Pontic diaspora in Thessaloniki. He obtained his PhD degree on Sociology in the Université Paris 8 – Vincennes - Saint-Denis in 2014. His Phd Thesis focused on the question of family strategies of social reproduction in post-war Greece. His Master’s degree was on Sociology and Anthropology of development and exchanges (Université Paris 8). Research interests cover economic anthropology and sociology, anthropology of the diasporas, sociology of work and sociology of the family. He has also worked as a librarian and documentalist in many law and social sciences research libraries of the Sorbonne in France.

Dimitris Kataiftsis is a Thessaloniki-based researcher in social studies, specialized in history, ethnography and gender issues, concerning Greeks of the ex-soviet countries. He graduated from Thessaloniki’s University of Macedonia, at the department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies. He then moved to Paris for two years where he received his MA2 degree in the faculty of Slavic Studies of Paris IV-Sorbonne University. Seven years later he was given the title of doctorate by the Doctoral School of Paris IV-Sorbonne University. In 2016 he accomplished his post-doctoral research in Romania’s Iasi (University of Alexander Cuza), at the department of History, product of his field work at the Independent Republic of Abkhazia in Caucasus area. Some years before he had translated from Russian to Greek, N. Ioannidi’s “Greeks of Abkhazia”. In the meantime, he cooperated with historical editions in Greece, like ‘Historical Themes’ and scientific journals as “Historica”. He participated in Congresses in Greece and Russia, where he presented the results of his works on Pontic Greeks of the FSU countries. He is actually a member of the Institute of Slavic Studies in Paris, as well as owner and administrator of slavologos. com webpage.

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Homeland-Diaspora Relations in Flux

From popular markets, to Russian products stores, to “big business”: Economies and ethics inside Pontic Greek communities of Thessaloniki after the Soviet experience

Author(s) bio

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