photos: Gerasimos Domenikos

In the industrial cityscape of western Attica, in the area of Aspropyrgos, a neighbourhood has been created by Pontian refugees from the former Soviet Union. Reluctantly at first, in the early 1970s, showing an upsurge after 1990, families of repatriates built their homes on cheap pieces of land, not included in the city plan, between factories, fields and colossal electricity pillars. A degraded area, with high pollution levels and a transit mood, just like the trucks parking in vacant spots around it. The older ones reminisce the glorious, lost past of the U.S.S.R., while the younger ones, sitting on the railings of the Attiki Odos highway at night, dream of the great escape in fast cars and in the company of beautiful girls.