Ukrainian in Greece Open Cultural Center

A Ukrainian cultural center has opened in Athens under the aegis of the Ukrainian community in Greece, Ukrayinsky zhuravlyny krai (Ukrainian Crane Land), assisted by the Athenian Greek Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity and the Ukrainian Embassy in Greece. Addressing those present at the opening ceremony, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Greece Viktor Kalnyk underscored the achievements of the Ukrainian community in Greece working to unite Ukrainians living in this country and stressed the necessity to further unite the efforts of the community to lay the organizational and political groundwork of the Ukrainian diaspora in Greece. As Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Greece to Ukraine Dimitris Kontoumas has told The Day repeatedly, official Athens has no claims against Ukrainian immigrant workers and does not consider Ukraine a wellspring of illegal immigration. The Ukrainian cultural center in Athens has leased a detached four-story building. The lease is paid from community membership fees and donations of the Greek side. The center maintains a small library collected by Kyiv’s Shevchenko National University and the Ukrainian Embassy. It has also opened an information office and a Ukrainian school named after Taras Shevchenko. As The Day was told at the Greek Embassy in Ukraine, the school opened in 2000 and is attended by over 100 students aged from seven to seventeen. Initially a Sunday school, today it is an incomplete primary and secondary facility. The teacher staff is made up of members of the Ukrainian community in Greece. Classes are held on a daily basis according to the Ukrainian school curriculum. The school has been opened with the intent to give the offspring of Ukrainian labor immigrants an opportunity to continue education in a traditional Ukrainian school.