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Sunday, May. 20, 2012 |  Syndicate content

Athens is plastered with one message: enoikiazetai. To let

Page last updated at 00:00 GMT, Friday, August 5, 2011 - 05:00 EST

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Guardian:

Traders in Athens are fighting to survive amid Greece's new poverty.
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Shops, offices and factories close as Greek landlords 'refuse to drop commercial rents to prices that people can afford'

There's a word that is ubiquitous in the Greek capital: Enoikiazetai. For non-Greek speakers it might not be easy to pronounce but its meaning is bland, almost boring. It translates as "To let".

In today's Athens, it is as toxic and omnipresent as a plague notice stuck to the door. You will find it on shop fronts, office blocks and factories, where businesses have withered and died. Too many of them, and you know you're in an area where trade cannot prosper.

It is printed on white banners, strung across the windows of buildings 10 storeys high, and on cheap yellow paper signs plastered on the glass.

Read the whole story: Guardian

Greece-World News