Exarheia is a suburb in Athens notorious for being a hotbed of anarchy, a place that locals love and people are told to avoid visiting at night. During riots, it’s a hub of action with more tear gas thrown here than anywhere else.

Named Exarcheia after a merchant named Exarchos opened a general store here, it is bordered on the east by upmarket Kolonaki and is flanked by Patission Street, Panepistimiou Street and Alexandras Avenue.

It’s a place where some buildings are crumbling –

A place where graffiti is everywhere.

The National Archaeological Museum that contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek antiquity is in Exarcheia.

Athens Polytechnic, also in Exarcheia, was where the political student uprising took place on November 17, 1973, that was a first step towards overthrowing Greece’s military dictatorship.

Navarino Park was a vacant lot that the council wanted to turn into a car park until the local residents, in their usual Exarcheia style, dug it up themselves and turned it into a green spot.

The shrine to Alexander Grigoropoulos pays tribute to the boy that was shot by the police in 2008 at the corner of Mesolongiou and Tzabella streets setting off riots in December 2008. Since then it has unofficially come to be known as Grigoropoulos Street.

It’s a place where young people gather and talk politics, culture and changing the world.

And every street is a graffiti museum where you can read literature on walls.

Indeed, there are many ways of looking at Exarchia.

Here’s how Deutsche Welle viewed it in its brief tribute to the cesspool of passion, history and youth…