The renovated “Seferis” building of the General Consulate of Greece in Korytsa was inaugurated today by Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, together with the Foreign Minister of Albania, Igli Hasani.

It is, as Mr. Gerapetritis said in his greeting, the building where George Seferis, diplomat, poet, and later winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963, lived and worked as consul in 1936-’37. It was then owned by a Greek family and was to be purchased as a destroyed building by the Greek state in 1998.

As he pointed out, the restoration of the building was initially contributed to by donations from Greeks from Korytsa and all over Albania, as well as from Greece, but also by foundations and companies from both countries. Its completion was financed by the Greek state.

“George Seferis was inspired by his stay here, and surely the tenure here of a humanist poet of world renown is an honour for the city. A city, which has always had the first place in letters within the Albanian space, both in Greek and Albanian,” he noted.

“Continuing the presence of Greek letters in Korytsa, in the tradition of the once famous Bageios Gymnasium, are the Greek-Albanian school “Homer”, the Lyceum “Platon”, as well as the Greek language school “Aristotle”, for which the Greek State will not cease to care,” he said. He referred to the case of Sotir Papahristo, to whom we owe the Albanian translations of most of the works of ancient Greek drama and who received his encyclical education and then worked for many years in this city, Korytsa. “A truly brilliant example of Greek-Albanian osmosis in the field of the spirit.”

“Our embassies and consulates are the image of Greece abroad. The new building of the Consulate General in Korytsa is part of the efforts we have been making over the last two years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to upgrade, worldwide, the building facilities of our authorities, as well as, of course, to digitalize the consular services. It is a practical proof that our concern is to strengthen relations between the Diaspora and the Motherland,” he noted.

“In today’s world, the challenges against freedom and peace are many,” he said. “We start with our neighbors and make sure to promote good neighborly relations.”

“As neighbouring and friendly countries, Greece and Albania, we give priority to the stability and prosperity of our wider region, both through the development of our bilateral relations and through the promotion of regional cooperation.

Border revisionist policies are now a thing of the past.”

He also thanked the Albanian Foreign Minister for his presence at the inauguration, which he said sends an important message, noting that his presence “at the Albanian Foreign Ministry has helped substantially in upgrading the relations between our two countries.”

“Today, here in Korytsa, the Greek ethnic minority unites us. And it continues to be, as it has been for centuries, the bridge of communication and understanding between the two peoples,” he concluded.