Yiannis Servetas, the Writer

Veterans of the small screen remember him from the early years of private television and "Anekdotades", giving the audience the definition of the company. Younger people got to know him through his recent radio work, books and plays. Throughout this course, retsina was close at hand at every moment of carelessness and difficulty. A relationship that remains strong today.

"Retsina is a trademark of our city. It's our thick lamda – but in amber form, in a bottle. Our retsina".

THE MAN NEXT DOOR.

For most of the world, Yiannis Servetas is synonymous with a smile and carelessness. This is probably due to his many years of television and radio presence, but also to his diaries-anecdotologies, which – rightly – were on the bestseller lists for years. For some others he is a man full of emotions. A friend and father. A good man with a capital Em. Those who saw the stand-up show "Suitcase and dash" know what we mean. Children have associated him with feelings of innocence. They got to know him through his fairy tales: the Christmas "Bitten Curabies", which was also made into a play, but also the recent "The Five Brothers".
Few may imagine that, like all of us, he too had his own difficult moments. Some of them had a glass of retsina next to them. No, it didn't magically solve the problems... But it was an optimistic start, for things to go their way.
"Retsina, no matter how quaint what I'm about to say sounds, was and is the support and consolation in all the difficult times, but also the 'icing on the cake' in all my joys" explains Yiannis Servetas. "I once went through a big 'storm' and found myself in a dire situation. I owed a lot of money - of course, I didn't tell my parents, so as not to upset them, but my father, realizing that something was wrong, made me in his way to open my heart and tell him the whole truth. When Barba-Vassilis heard it all, he became dark... He sighed heavily, hit his hand on his leg, closed his face in his hands, walked anxiously up and down and said to me: Yiannis, you owe this money, and you will have to find a way to pay them. Now there are two ways to go about it. One is to cry all day about what happened to you. The other, let's open retsina, drink it and say nothing, lest we forget. My mother, Mrs. Panagiota, brought retsina and sat with us. Since then, I have always, both in the difficult times and in the good times, opened retsina".

SCENTS AND STEEPNESS.

Throughout their history, from ancient times until today, Greek wines accompanied every moment of the Greek. Pleasant or unpleasant. What thoughts does Yiannis Servetas have when he hears the terms "wine" and "retsina"?
"Greek wines are excellent - among the best on our planet. With scents and steepness from the rugged high mountains, leavened with sea salt and bound by our wonderful sun. Our wines have those flavors that enchant connoisseurs. However, our retsina are the memories of Sunday afternoons when I watched football in dry fields and arenas, it is the groups that were made 'on the knee' in a canteen somewhere in the wasteland and the carelessness from my adolescence with my friends".
And while the memories follow one another, the following – repeated – scene comes to the mind of Yiannis Servetas. Navarino Square. This was my neighborhood. There we were sitting in 'Liopesi', a group that was slowly growing, because so many children were gathering. At the end, the bill read:

• One serving of meatballs.
• A salad.
• Six portions of bread.
• 64 retsina.
  Of course, it was pot luck...".

WITH A THICK LAMDA.

Retsina may have accompanied the small and big moments of people in every corner of Greece, but for Yannis Servetas it is synonymous with Thessaloniki: "I want to tell you something that, if I don't say it, I will run away. When I was younger and unrecognizable, wherever I went on a trip, I always asked for retsina along with the food in the taverns. Somehow, they always understood that I am from Thessaloniki and then smiled broadly at me. Retsina is a trademark of our city. It's our thick lamda – but in amber form, in a bottle. Our retsina".

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