A Picture of Prosperity: The Affluent Greeks of Pontus’s Trabzon

This is simply a colorized mentation of the archetypal photo. Credit: Pontos World

This singular photograph captures a country of leisure and wealth, reflecting the ascendant economical presumption held by the Greek assemblage of Trabzon successful Pontus, successful the 19th oregon aboriginal 20th century.

It is not conscionable a representation of radical traveling; it is simply a ocular papers of a prosperous, cosmopolitan people enjoying the benefits of their commercialized occurrence successful the strategical Black Sea port.

The excursion of the affluent Greeks of Trabzon

The representation shows a ample radical engaged successful a relaxed excursion on a tree-lined roadworthy extracurricular the metropolis center. The procession is dominated by horse-drawn carriages and phaetons. This prime of transport speaks straight to wealth, indicating that these individuals were not simply walking oregon riding connected humble animals but owned oregon hired the finest vehicles disposable astatine the time.

The travel itself implies a leisure activity—traveling to villas oregon countryside estates—that was exclusive to the precocious class.

The covering instantly identifies the subjects arsenic a blase municipality elite. The men are predominantly dressed successful Western-style suits, often paired with homburgs oregon boaters, a benignant fashionable crossed European cities and adopted by the mercantile classes passim the Ottoman Empire. This fashionable attire signals their transportation to planetary commercialized and culture, distinguishing them from the much accepted formal of the agrarian populace.

Greek assemblage successful Pontus was forged by commerce

The radical shown successful the photograph were the beneficiaries of Trabzon’s presumption arsenic the cardinal transit hub for commercialized betwixt Europe and Persia. The Greek (and Armenian) families controlled the banking, shipping, and import/export businesses that generated tremendous fortunes.

By the aboriginal 20th century, the Greeks of Trabzon were salient not conscionable successful commerce but besides successful the fiscal sector. Of the 5 banks operating successful Trabzon, 3 were owned by members of the Greek community, including the banks of Theofylaktos, Kapagiannidis, and Fostiropoulos. The 4th was a subdivision of the Ottoman Bank, and the 5th was a subdivision of the Bank of Athens.

Wealthy Greek bankers and merchants were liable for constructing immoderate of the city’s astir awesome buildings, specified arsenic the celebrated Atatürk Kiosk, which was primitively the villa of affluent banker Konstantinos Kapagiannidis.

The affluent Greek elite

The archetypal photo. Public Domain

The beingness of specified a large, organized procession for a societal outing underscores respective points: It demonstrates the sheer size and societal cohesion of the affluent Greek elite who possessed the means and clip for radical leisure activities.

This conspicuous show of wealth—a enactment of carriages and well-dressed people—was a nationalist assertion of their societal and economical presumption wrong the city.

Their adoption of European manner and leisure habits highlights their taste outlook, which was intimately linked to the European trading partners with whom they did business.

In essence, this photograph vividly confirms the humanities accounts: the Greeks of Trabzon were a highly palmy merchant people who utilized the city’s geographic vantage to accumulate immense wealth, creating a vibrant, yet yet fragile, economical cornerstone of the precocious Ottoman Black Sea region.

However, portion the Greek assemblage of Trabzon was affluent arsenic a radical compared to their Turkish neighbors, not each Greeks successful the portion were rich; determination was inactive a colonisation of poorer Greeks, peculiarly successful the upland villages of the Pontic Alps.

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