My name is the Vaggelis Kakosaios. I was born and raised in Elefsina. My parents are from nearby villages in Boeotia and came here as workers. I have a family that also lives in Elefsina, a son and a daughter. I am an army officer and about 20 years ago, I was disabled by an autoimmune disease.
So the myth and the history of Eleusis is something confused in the minds of the Eleusinians. So Eleusis describes to us through her history, the abduction of Persephone by Hades, but not as an accomplished event, but rather, as an event which led to victory over death, and through which Persephone emerged back to earth. And so the seasons were created. The seasons… Winter comes and spring comes, and summer and autumn. This cycling change in people’s lives. So, Eleusis is not something that led us to death, no. Eleusis teaches us that the seed that dies, is born becomes a tree, and grows.
It is similar with people with disabilities in our association; I think that we are experiencing an initiation. We are experiencing an initiation, in the same way that mystics of the Eleusinian Mysteris used to initiate others. They experience the initiation through a difficult situation that often approaches death, but also the other part. Through this process, their lives gain meaning and they recognize what we call the values of life. And so, through this passage, from difficulty, danger, and fear, we pass to the victory of life, we pass to joy, we pass to our dreams, we pass to our pursuits, our goals.
Therefore, Elefsina hides no curse. It hides a blessing. Ελευσίνιοι τεις μονεις ηγείται η Ελλάς as used to say the Ancient Greeks. That means that, because of Elefsina, the spiritual world of Greece is at such a level that the Greek people prosper mentally and spiritually. It’s the most sacred place in Greece, it’s not something negligible. We were the ones who changed Greece and we kept it in a certain psychological state.
So Elefsina. It started to become an industrial city around 1970. The industries developed in anarchy around this city. At the same time, all the Greek immigrants came to Eleusis to work, because here was the industrial center of the country and so it became a city which starred in the environmental pollution. Nevertheless, we will try to change this in every way. For Elefsina, the city deserves to be clean. There can be industrial activity without excluding the city, as long as the necessary measures are taken.
So if I wanted to describe my life in Eleusis in three words, I would say that… we experience the history of Elefsina every day. In the streets around the archaeological site. The second part is that we experience the present differently. from the rest of the people, because right now a cultural process of the Cultural Capital is taking place and so we learn, but not with the aim of solely showing who we are as a Cultural Capital, but also with the aim to learn and change ourselves from the culture that will enter Eleusis. And finally, the third word that I would like to say is the joy that I find in everything that is happening today in Elefsina, because I will be able to show through our own actions, what we do and who we are.
