Dr. Konstantinos Fotiadis, professor of history at the University of Western Macedonia, left, and George Tsilfidis, president of the Norwalk-based Pontian Society, with the Greek versions of the professor's many books. Fotiadis was the keynote speaker at a three-day event at Norwalk City Hall celebrating 3,000 years of Greeks in Pontos, 100 years of Greek Pontians in Norwalk and the 30th anniversary of the Pan-Pontian Federation of U.S.A. and Canada.
The story of George Tsilfidis' grandmother aptly describes the travels and travails of the Pontian people.
His grandmother, who died in 1997 at the age of 102 or 104 -- "we're not sure how old she was," said her grandson -- was forced to flee Pontos; was relocated to Russia, then had to leave there; went to live in Greece, where she witnessed and survived the Civil War; and endured her Pontian countrymen suffering and dying in the Greek genocide of the early 1920s.
She arrived in United States when she was in her 70s or 80s. "She only saw war before," said Tsilfidis, from Norwalk and the president of the Pontian Society "Pontos."
As she lived out her life on American soil, she experienced only the positive. "She saw her kids prosper," said Tsilfidis, who was 14 years old when he arrived in the United States in 1971.
On a recent afternoon at Pontos Taverne on Isaacs Street, which also houses the Pontian Society offices, Tsilfidis, his first cousin Gus Tsilfides and Dr. Konstantinos Fotiadis sat down to discuss the history of Pontians and that weekend's celebration.
"Norwalk is proud to host this significant celebration of history and culture. Welcoming visitors from throughout North America to recognize the deep respect for Greek Pontians' impact on the development of western civilization and the more recent contributions to our local communities is a privilege for our city and all its citizens," Moccia said in a release.
The book is a compilation of the 14 volumes of the 3,000-year history of the Pontian people that has been translated to English to reach a wider audience.
"We've known of his work. He has other books dealing with the history of the Pontian people, but this is his latest work, which mostly refers to our ancestors," said Tsilfides.
Tsilfides, who was 10 years old when he came to the United States in 1969, said the primary goal of the convention is to "perpetuate our culture. For our kids not to forget the dancing and the music and the language and the traditional foods, sayings, myths -- all those things encompass our culture." The secondary goal is to promote the strides made in the United States and in other regions for worldwide recognition of the genocide, which took the lives of more than 3 million Armenians, Pontians, Greeks and Assyrians from 1916 to 1923 during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. More than 350,000 Pontians were killed in massacres, death marches and other forms of torture, they said.