The Patras on October 19 and 20″>18th Panhellenic Festival of Pontic Dances, which this year is being held in Patras, began with the speech-greeting of the Mayor of Patra, Kostas Peletidis, to the hundreds of Pontian dancers, the representatives of organizations and the spectators who have flooded the “Dimitrios Tofalos” Indoor Gym.
The Mayor, in his speech full of emotions but also with clear political messages, emphasized:
“Dear compatriots,
dear compatriots,
Welcome to Patras, the city that, in 1922 – 1923, welcomed 7,500 refugees uprooted from Pontus, Asia Minor.
Welcome, devout children of all Greece.
A century has passed since the massacre, the uprooting, the refugee of thousands of Pontians.
We didn’t disappear, we literally grew on the stone. The sweat of our grandparents grew the root, which produced grandchildren and great-grandchildren who hold the thread and move forward.
And it bursts from where its root holds. They sang, sang, danced, played, and celebrated the villages like in the old days of their homeland.
We relive the old days, we adore and miss the places we haven’t seen, haven’t lived.
We hum, we dilute to find the culprits. Who are the ones who uprooted us, who sent us into exile? Who made us interchangeable, who considered people to be objects?
We know them! They are the ones who, as our grandparents used to say:
They burned us for our oils, as if they were burning and there was no burning.
We see them even today, they are the same ones who uproot other peoples.
They are the owners of wealth, who in the face of their power, their profits, do not hesitate to destroy everything!
As we mourned and mourn our dead, our children, so Palestine mourns its own children today.
The peoples have nothing to divide among themselves.
“People are killed for the master’s food.”
Dear compatriots, compatriots, temeron.
We continue the just claim for the “International Recognition of the Pontian Genocide“.
The greatest honor for the memory of our people, the Pontic people, is to be protagonists in the struggle so that no people will ever again experience what ours experienced.
Let’s put our rock to stop the wars caused by the multinational empires with the military and political formations they build to control and tyrannize the people, our children.
Command should be done by those who build everything and not by those who destroy it.
The children of the Pontus excelled in fighting for life, excelled and danced.
We are ready to match handsomely dancing.
From everything in our mind, dance too, let’s have mercy on you.”
The 18th Panhellenic Festival of Pontic Dances is organized by the Pontic Federation of Greece, under the patronage of the Municipality of Patrae, the Region of Western Greece and the Regional Union of Municipalities.
The event is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
The three-day event with the messages for the international recognition of the genocide of Pontic Hellenism, for the uprooting and the refugee, which started on Friday 18/10, closes on Sunday, October 20, in Georgiou Square, where Pontic dances will be presented and the spectators will have the opportunity to taste traditional Pontic dishes.
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