Renowned for its imposing medieval architecture, cobbled streets, huge parks and namesake river, the Cam, Cambridge is home to one of the oldest educational institutions in the world – a giant of 30 independent colleges and 125 Nobel prizes that was founded in 1209 – and some 130,000 residents – six in 10 of whom have a doctorate – including 3,000 Greek university academics, doctors, students, researchers and big tech executives. Many of them emigrated to the UK in search of a brighter future during the Greek economic crisis and Cambridge offered them an environment of meritocracy and transparency where they could thrive. They found opportunities there that they could only dream of in Greece. Their love for their native country remains strong, however, and it is also driving their efforts to keep Cambridge’s Greek school – one of the biggest in the country, with 300 pupils – going.
The history of the Saint Athanasios School dates back to 1969, when a group of Greeks and Cypriots started giving lessons to the community’s children for free. One of those volunteers was George Pippas, who was mayor of Cambridge in 2017-2018.
“I was still studying at the time – engineering,” he tells Kathimerini of those days in the late 1960s. “The city didn’t have an Orthodox church or a Greek school. We rented an Anglican church to hold services and classes. Our priest, Father Amvrosios, actually taught grade six there. In 2015, with money collected from donations, the community was able to build the Church of Saint Athanasios and acquire a few rooms in an adjacent building where classes are now held, every afternoon for the older children and Saturdays and Sundays for the younger ones.”
Kathimerini visited the building to meet with five members of the school committee, who also have children enrolled there: doctors Eleftheria Kleidi, Michalis Karvelis and Dimitris Giotikas, and engineers Giorgos Asfis and George Raikos.
“We’re hanging on tooth and nail; we don’t want our children to lose touch with the Greek language and, by extension, with our culture and traditions,” they say, outlining some of the challenges the endeavor faces.
“The Greek Ministry of Education sends books covering all the grades and pays the salary for one teacher, Maria Perisianidou. The Cypriot delegation contributes by covering 30% of the annual operating budget. Parents pay out of pocket to cover all the other expenses, such as renting additional classrooms, operational costs and the wages for 15 part-time educators and the janitorial staff,” they say.
“Do you see how many of the kids are wearing their jackets in class? That’s because there isn’t enough money to pay for heating. The lack of support really hurts; please make sure to mention that. We keep hearing about the talk in Greece to reverse the brain drain and we just scoff: It’s hot air, with no substance,” says Spyros Roumaneas, a financial crimes adviser.
The scientists
‘There’s a transparent mechanism – that is not driven by partisan or other interests as is the case in Greece – which keeps you on your toes’
Eleftherios (Lefteris) Ioannou studied physics at Athens University and is now doing a postdoc at Cambridge, where he is involved in researching the modeling of rock fracturing under extreme conditions, with the aim of improving the drilling process for deep geothermal energy.
Maria Chrysanthou and Alexander Farmakalides are working on the development of magnetohydrodynamic models for unstable flows of magnetically confined plasma and its interaction with nuclear reactor walls, while Simeon Hatzopoulos, another physicist, is exploring the impact on global warming of the white elongated clouds of ice crystals that form behind aircraft during flight when the hot gases produced by their engines mix with the cold air.
Maria Nikodemou – who is developing advanced mathematical models for simulating chemical reaction flows – and Katerina Adamopoulou – who is also working on improving geothermal drilling – have different academic roots: in mathematics. All seven of these young Greek and Cypriot scientists, however, work with Nikos Nikiforakis, a professor of scientific commuting, director of studies in mathematics at Selwyn College and director of scientific computing at Cavendish. They are working together in an “ecosystem of research, teaching and engagement with industry.”
The desire for his research to have an impact on people is also the motivating force driving Nikolaos Ktistakis. A lead researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Babraham Institute, he transitioned from medicine to research, focusing on biochemistry and cell biology “out of an interest in the mechanisms of human physiology – essentially, the fundamentals of life – and the molecular causes of diseases.” His area of expertise is cellular signaling, or how cells receive stimuli or signals from the external environment, from other cells within the body and even from themselves, meaning their internal environment. Some of these signals then trigger functional changes, allowing the cells to adapt to new conditions (a process known as cellular response). This also includes autophagy – a key focus of research for Dr Ktistakis.
As the years go by, waste products, fat and dysfunctional or damaged proteins accumulate inside our cells. “Autophagy is the process through which these are broken down and recycled into new, healthy components,” Ktistakis explains. But how is autophagy activated? “Through intermittent fasting. The body needs to abstain from food for at least 18 hours in order to start producing its own nutrients within the cells,” he adds.
In fact, Ktistakis usually skips breakfast and has an early dinner, which is why our meeting at the Greek restaurant The Olive Grove is for 6.30 p.m. He and his wife, Maria Manifava – also a researcher at the Babraham Institute – talk about life in Cambridge, describing it as lovely, tranquil and balanced. “The lack of distractions allows you to focus on your home, your family, and your friends. And professionally, the direct link between effort and reward constantly pushes you to improve. There’s a transparent mechanism – that is not driven by partisan or other interests as is, unfortunately, the case in Greece – which keeps you on your toes: You are judged by your work and face the consequences. In the last evaluation at our institute, for example, an entire department was shut down. Have you ever seen anything like that happen in Greece?” says Ktistakis.
The following morning, I meet Effrossyni Gkrania-Klotsas, an associate professor of medicine at Cambridge University, at the entrance of the university hospital.
She and her husband, endocrinologist Angelos Klotsas, have lived here for 20 years. “There are doctors or nurses from Greece on every floor of this building. Speak Greek anywhere, and someone will turn around,” she says.
Gkrania-Klotsas has been national lead for Infectious Diseases at the UK’s National Institute of Health Research for the past few weeks. “If there is one thing that keeps me here, it’s the meritocracy of the British system,” she says.
On my last night in Cambridge, I drop by the Grain & Hop Store, which is hosting a Greek night, where I find around 300 Greeks dancing to “Roza,” by Thanos Mikroutsikos and Alkis Alkaios, which is being performed on the stage by Dorothea Papadaki. She and her band – musicians Christos Malliakos, Christos Kontos and Giannis Eleftheriadis – often play the city’s live music stages.
Papadaki was born in the seaside town of Tolo in the Peloponnese and came to Cambridge eight years ago to study music. She’s now doing a PhD combining music and anthropology. “I didn’t know what I would find when I came here but now – and even though I had an opportunity to move to London – I have chosen Cambridge quite consciously and wouldn’t change it for the world,” she says. “Its multiculturality is what makes it special. You never feel like a foreigner in Cambridge because almost everyone else is foreign too!”
