It was time to go home.Īthens central district of Exarchia has a long history of civil disobedience, and for that reason, it has played an important role in the social and political life of Greece for many years. After pondering for a moment, I turned right towards the bus stop. Already on the street, the mob turned left towards Platia Exarchion. I trailed the group until the gate keeping a distance from those behind. In about ten minutes there was no one left in that space. everyone started walking in formation towards the gate. There must have been at least two hundred people there, mostly in their thirties. I sensed danger in the air and it made me feel thrilled. A guy with a black bomber jacket was holding a baseball bat. People kept coming in large quantities, many wearing helmets and balaclavas hiding their faces. I sat on it looking at the mob from a safe distance. I walked to a gloomy, sheltered passageway behind the colonnade in the back end of the complex where there was a desk oddly placed against the wall. I felt displaced and vulnerable but the sight intrigued me. The vast majority was wearing black clothes, and more than a few had motorcycle helmets on. There were about fifty people gathered in that place, all restless and fidgety, speaking to each other in murmurs. I could feel a nervous atmosphere in the air. The further I walked into the complex, the more people I saw. As I passed by the gate of the Polytechnio, I noticed it was unusually crowded. It was so early in the evening after all. After putting out the cigarette, I walked towards the bus stop undecided whether or not to go home. I could only understand the word “cannibalism”. I tried to decipher what was written on them by reading out the Greek letters. I sat on the concrete rim of a flowerless flowerbed for a cigarette and looked at the protest banners suspended between the lights. It was strangely empty for that time on a Saturday. After dinner I got a beer from a kiosk and walked to Platia Exarchion, the main square of the anarchist district. I sat in a café in Exarchia until late afternoon reading the book of Cavafy poems that I had borrowed from K. For most of the day the air was dense and the sky of Athens looked reddish from Saharan dust carried by the wind. You won’t find a better view of the sky in Athens,” he said. “What I like the most about this space is the way it frames the sky. He talked exactly as one would expect from an architect. This is his favorite part of the building, the guide told us. Unlike the other outside spaces of the complex, it remains closed at night. It also stands out as the only part of the building that has no graffiti on the walls. It is a pompous space with very well conserved neoclassical elements. The tour finished in the inner courtyard of the main building. They’ve been there for a while already, he said. I asked him about the families I’d just seen outside and he told me they are refugees living in a part of the building that had been squatted by anarchists from the neighborhood. He was very friendly and showed us the studios, and the library, telling us how big a struggle they had to fight in order to even have one. The tour guide was a professor from the faculty. He was guiding a tour for a small group of foreigners and I tagged along, introducing myself when I found a chance. I headed to the central building and, as soon I passed the door I heard a man speaking English. Some women wearing hijabs were washing clothes outside in an improvised washbasin. As I walked through the gate, I noticed several families with their children coming in and out of a door to the right. All walls were filled with graffiti and banners hanged between trees.
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I walked through the entrance gate into the outside area of the complex, which comprises a series of structures around the perimeter of the block, additionally to the neoclassical building in the middle. I had noticed the building already on the day I arrived in Athens, as its neoclassical facade is very prominent from the main street connecting the city center to Kypseli, where I am staying. I got off the bus a couple of stops before Omonia to check out the Faculty of Architecture, which is housed in a building known as Polytechnio in the central district of Exarchia.