Savvas Leptourgidis, a retired journalist, was born in 1948 at the American Women’s Hospital in Kokkinia. He grew up and still lives in Keratsini at the refugee neighbourhood of Amfiali. He is an active member of the ‘Nea Sinasos’ Association, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Savvas Christou Ntogramatzis, who was a teacher at the All-Boys and the All-Girls schools of Sinasos and a prominent member of the local community. As a child, Savvas Leptourgidis didn’t get to hear many stories about Sinasos from his father, who was a man of few words, but learned a lot more from his older aunt, who both remembered more and was more willing to share. His large family had come to Greece as part of the Population Exchange Agreement and wandered around a lot before finally settling. In the process, the family lost several members to the hardships which commonly plagued the refugees during the fraught first months of their settlement.
Despite leaving Sinasos in an organised manner, they didn’t bring many possessions with them, and even the ones they did bring got lost with time. The only family heirloom that Savvas Leptourgidis still has in his possession is an icon of Agios Savvas, probably painted by the most renowned folk artist of Sinasos, Kostis Meletiadis, and gifted to Savvas’ grandfather, his namesake. This icon is the only physical remnant of the life the family left behind and it is very important for Savvas Leptourgidis, even though he is not particularly religious. The icon of Agios Savvas is a piece of his and his family’s past and at the same time, a piece of his homeland’s culture.
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The interview and the photo shoot documenting the objects were conducted as part of the research project Fleeing objects, which was funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative and implemented at Columbia University during the period 2020-2021.