At the end of September, the whole family reached the wooden railway platform at Punta and then boarded a ship to Lesvos. From there, they went to Limnos, the birthplace of Charalambos Tsardanidis. A year later, they arrived in Piraeus, where they stayed for a year behind Evangelistria church, and then moved to Ano Kipseli, with the family finally settling down near Koliatsou Square in 1926. Throughout this long and tumultuous journey, Grandma Koralia and her family were accompanied and protected by the icon of the Annunciation.
Kleio used this tray in family ceremonies, mainly weddings where it was used as a display for the wedding wreaths. She polished the tray often and passed it on to her daughter, Anna Kyriadou. For Anna, this well-travelled tray encapsulates her family’s history.
On her father’s side, Gogo Rakopoulou hails from Prousa, while on her mother’s side, her ancestors were originally from Smyrna. Their original surname is not known, since they adopted the surname ‘Tsichlakis’ upon their arrival in Chania. These four icons travelled with them and, after the family had settled in Greece, they adorned their homes and, later, their descendants’ homes.
Gogo Rakopoulou describes how, when she took the icons out to clean them, she noticed that some of them had writing on them. As she says, one of the icons was probably her family’s diary.