Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance Read Free

were well-to-do merchants whose offices stood in the heart of Smyrna. In the late afternoon, when the infamous imbat or west wind blew in off the sea, Petros’s father and mother would dress up in their finery and join the evening passeggiata along the Aegean waterfront. The imposing banks and clubhouses that lined the quayside were tangible symbols of Smyrna’s prosperity. The Sporting Club, Grand Hotel Kraemer Palace and Théâtre de Smyrne were built on such a grand scale that their whitewashed walls, glimmering in the sunshine, were visible for miles out to sea.
    Amidst the grandeur there was intense human activity. Hawkers and street traders peddled their wares along the mile-long quayside. Water sellers jangled their brass bowls; hodjas – Muslim holy men – mumbled prayers in the hope of earning a copper or two. And impecunious legal clerks, often Italian, would proffer language lessons at knock-down prices.
    ‘You saw all sorts . . .’ recalled the French journalist, Gaston Deschamps. ‘Swiss hoteliers, German traders, Austrian tailors, English mill owners, Dutch fig merchants, Italian brokers, Hungarian bureaucrats, Armenian agents and Greek bankers.’
    The waterfront was lined with lively bars, brasseries and shaded café gardens, each of which tempted the palate with a series of enticing scents. The odour of roasted cinnamon would herald an Armenian patisserie; apple smoke spilled forth from hookahs in the Turkish cafés. Coffee and olives, crushed mint and armagnac: each smell was distinctive and revealed the presence of more than three dozen culinary traditions. Caucasian pastries, boeuf à la mode , Greek game pies and Yorkshire pudding could all be found in the quayside restaurants of Smyrna.
    It was not just the Brussalises’ noses that enjoyed the evening promenade. The arias of frivolous Italian operettas drifted out from the open-air bandstands while the honky-tonk of ragtime conveyed a message of fun from the more outré establishments. Consul George Horton, a contemporary of Petros’s parents, recalled that each café ‘had its favourite politakia or orchestra of guitars, mandolins and zithers and the entertainers grew increasingly animated as more and more wine was consumed’.
    Horton had lived in many places in the world, but nowhere caught his imagination like Smyrna. It had the climate of southern California, the architecture of the Côte d’Azur and the allure of nowhere else on earth. ‘In no city in the world did East and West mingle physically in so spectacular a manner,’ he wrote.
    The city was dominated by the Greeks. They numbered 320,000 and had a virtual monopoly on the trade in the sticky figs, sultanas and apricots for which Smyrna was so famous. They also owned many of the city’s flagship businesses, including the two largest department stores, Xenopoulo and Orisdiback, which sold imported goods from across the globe.
    It was in this first emporium, more than eight decades ago, that the young Petros Brussalis got his first taste of luxury. He remembers accompanying his mother and three haughty aunts on extravagant shopping expeditions that included obligatory pit-stops at these two stores. The Brussalis family lived in Cordelio on the far side of the bay. From here, a short ferry ride brought them to the city centre – an exciting adventure for a five-year-old boy, although Petros disliked being dragged from store to store by four chattering women, who insisted on dressing in fancy hats for their shopping outings. ‘I didn’t like it at all,’ he recalls with half a smile. ‘Even as a very young boy I thought it was beneath my dignity. Worse still, my aunts would give me their packages to carry.’
    But young Petros’s eyes would widen when his female entourage swept into Xenopoulo on Frank Street. ‘ Everything was imported from overseas,’ he recalls. ‘Biscuits, big tins, chocolates, lemon drops. To this day I can remember the names of them all.’
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