The Morning of 9th December, Riots in Thessaloniki

The photos for what follows are all together in the last post as this is the easiest way technically.

The language school called today to say that there would be no lessons today. This is understandable in view of its proximity to the epicentre of the rioting. Just around the corner on the main street, Egnatia, is what appears to be the rioters’ HQ, a three-storey building with a black banner hanging from the third floor balcony. Throughout the day music or speeches can be heard blaring out from here and echoing up and down the street. Yesterday there were the anarchists’ red and black flags at street level and a few of the building’s occupants hanging around the door, but this morning they were not in evidence. A sheet of A4 is posted in the door with a statement printed out on it, the first paragraph of which reads (roughly, as this is my translation):

“We, the detainees of the state judicial prisons of the District of Thessaloniki denounce from our captivity with rage the cold-blooded murder of a 16 year old boy by the Greek Police in Athens on 6^th December 2008. We denounce not only the execution of this one person but also oppose with all our energy all state oppression and its consequences.”

At the foot of the page are four signatures.

As far as I know the youth was shot whilst attacking a police car with a group of 30 in a part of Athens which is practically controlled by the anarchists, but I am still trying to find out more about that.

Extensive damage was caused in the areas indicated on the map as the rioters ran amok yesterday evening. Banks were the number one target, some of them were completely gutted, such as the Emporiki Bank at Ayia Sofia – they even managed to put out all the raised ceiling level windows.

Mobile phone outlets were another prime target – they went in, destroyed all the fittings, lit fires and took away all those useful little products of capitalism attached to the walls. The Vodafone shop in the picture was another place I had visited before its demise - I went in to discuss their mobile internet offer a few weeks ago. The assistant recommended the mini-PC, saying she had one herself.

Ecclesiastical premises did not go unscathed. As far as I could see, the great Byzantine churches were untouched (to have arranged things otherwise was no doubt deemed politically inadvisable), but some of the glass windows in the door of the relatively modern New St George’s, Rotunda, were smashed, as were many of those on street-side shrines (the graffiti on the photo showing the entrance to the shrine reads "no God, no Master"), and the shop fronts of all the ecclesiastical outlets I could see had been destroyed. Their contents remained in their place, icons and brassware having, it seems, less appeal to the youthful rampagers than the latest gadgets from Nokia.

An important theatre of action was Tsimiski – the boutique and up-market chain zone. Zara’s three closely located outlets were hammered and just about every shop in that area had its windows broken, such as the marble floored chamber of luxury in the picture, where it was business as usual today. Some shops seem to have removed all their stock before the rioting started, so only had to deal with the headache of broken glass. The large shutter blocking the entrance to a very smart shopping precinct remained intact but was covered with all manner of anti-American and anti-Nato graffiti.

Back on Egnatia, all except one of McDonald’s substantial shutters remained in place, but it seems that the rioters managed to get in under the one they had prized open – the interior was not visible but judging by the table and broken glass which had come out into the street, they wreaked havoc in there too.