Česky
"The choice of Pardubice as the seat of the first Greek Honorary Consulate in the Czech Republic is related to my business activities in the field of health services, especially the operation of the Multiscan Cancer Centre, which was opened in this city more than twenty years ago," said Honorary Consul Sotirios Zavalianis. "There are not many cities in the Czech Republic that have an honorary consulate on their territory, so it is an honour for us as a city. However, we have not yet had the space to define our closer cooperation and, above all, to talk about the possibilities of expanding it. The themes are clear - there is certainly a possibility of introducing Greek culture, and colleagues have already indicated their interest in introducing culture and gastronomy in the next year as part of an event organised by the city. Another possible area is cooperation in the field of education. We have also talked about establishing contact with a possible partner city in Greece, and assistance has been offered in identifying a city of a similar nature to Pardubice. The meeting opened up several possibilities for cooperation and I am looking forward to it," said Jan Nadrchal, Mayor of Pardubice, summarising the content of the initial meeting.
The planned programme of the Greek Day started on Thursday 5 September in the morning, where the invited guests gathered at the Pardubice Town Hall on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition of sacral architecture Treasures of Religion in Cyprus. It will be on display until 16 September in the foyer of the social hall of Pardubice Town Hall. The author of the exhibition is Jiří Králík, who also created another exhibition of photographs of the UNESCO project Czech-Greek-Cypriot Traces, which will be available for visitors or passers-by to see in the following days directly in the outdoor premises of the Honorary Consulate of Greece in Štrossova Street in Pardubice. The programme at the Honorary Consulate included a meeting of the Greek and Pardubice communities and a tasting of Greek gastronomy.
The last item of the Greek Day was a lecture by Konstantinos Tsivos, Secretary of the Honorary Consulate and university lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, entitled Greece in the Changes of Time. The lecture took place in the conference hall of the Clinical Oncology Building of Multiscan, which is part of the AKESO medical holding Sotirios Zavalianis, who is also the Honorary Consul of Greece in Pardubice. An exhibition mapping the beauty of Greece is also prepared for patients and staff in the oncology building.
In addition to the important representatives of the Honorary Consulate and the City of Pardubice, headed by Honorary Consul Sotirios Zavalianis and the Mayor of Pardubice Jan Nadrchal, the Greek Day was attended by the Ambassador of Greece, H.E. Athanassios Paressoglou, together with the representative of Cyprus, Vivian Avraamidou, a writer living in Prague - both of whom in their speech highlighted the long-standing friendly and constructive relations based on mutual respect and cooperation. Both countries regularly engage in diplomatic, economic and cultural exchanges and the Czech-Greek partnership is based on shared values and goals within the European Union and other international organisations.
Honorary Consulate of Greece in Pardubice
The opening of the Honorary Consulate of Greece in Pardubice represents another milestone in bilateral relations between the Hellenic Republic and the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia. During the two years of the Consulate's operation, financial support was provided on the initiative of Honorary Consul Sotirios Zavalianis to provide Greek language classes in the Greek communities of Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Krnov.
Other support was aimed at improving the quality of the teaching of Modern Greek at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague and the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno, where annual competitions are held for the best bachelor's or master's thesis or the prize for the best literary translation from Greek into Czech.
The Consulate in Pardubice is open every Wednesday and provides consular services and information to Greek and Czech citizens in Pardubice and neighbouring regions.
The Greek community and cooperation between Greece and the Czech Republic
There are currently about 5 000 Greeks living in the Czech Republic. Half of them are descendants of a generation of political refugees who found refuge in the former Czechoslovakia during the Greek Civil War. The other half are economic migrants, mostly highly skilled, who came to the Czech Republic during the economic crisis to find employment.
Since the 1990s, the Hellenic Republic and the Czech Republic have been members of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance, and their relations in the political, economic and cultural spheres have improved significantly. The Honorary Consulate in Pardubice, together with the Embassy of the Hellenic Republic in Prague, are the only Greek representations in the Czech Republic.
In addition to the Embassy in Athens, the Czech Republic has five consulates - in Thessaloniki, Crete, Rhodes, Corfu and now Lefkada.
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