The Greek diaspora in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union

counterpart in Greece. Regarding the second request it has
answered that students from the Soviet Union can only
enroll directly at the University of Thrace.
Pontians accuse the Greek government of racist attitudes.
They claim that they are treated as second-class
citizens and are sometimes called “Russians” or “Russian-
Pontians” which is very offensive. The Pontians think that
the Greek government is very much responsible for this
situation because it has not, as it should have, informed
the Greeks about the issue of the Pontians’ return, and because
it has not included Pontian history, which is a part of
Greek history, in the high-school curriculum.
A lot of problems have arisen because of some of EIYA-
POE’s actions. It is characteristically said that EIYAPOE’s
policy for the rehabilitation of the Pontians has created another
minority in Greece composed of Greeks! The settlements
created for the accommodation of the Pontians are in
isolated areas, away from the cities, which alienates them
from other people and gives their settlements the appearance
of ghettos. In addition, the living conditions in these
settlements are criticised as being poor. If we add unemployment
to these problems, we can see that the situation
has worsened considerably. As a result, the Pontians who
are capable of work abandon the settlements in Thrace and
flock to urban centres, especially to the suburbs of Athens
and Salonica; there, however, the problems are the same, if
not worse, and new “ghettos” arise...
Please refer to our forthcoming publication “Migration and Political
Intervention. Diasporas in Transition Countries” for the
complete text.
Existing surveys on the Pontian Greeks
Several surveys have been conducted on the Pontians;
the most reliable survey has been conducted by K. Kasimati
(1993b). I intend to present some elements which are
very indicative of the living conditions of the Pontians in
Greece. However, we should bear in mind that this survey
was conducted in 1990 which means that the majority of
the Pontians had arrived fairly recently; a fact that has certainly
affected the results of the survey.
We should begin with some findings on the household
structure, that is, the family as an economic unit. The average
Pontian household is composed of 4.5 members, while
the average Greek household has 3.49. This is usually interpreted
in the following way: because the Pontians are economically
weaker than the ‘Greeks’, they gather into larger
households in order to lower the living costs per person.
Furthermore, the Pontians in Greece consist of 51 percent
women and 49 percent men; their division according to age
is shown in table 3. Table 3 presents the following data:
36 percent of the Pontians are between 0–19 years old, 54
percent are between 20–59, which is the “productive age”,
and 8.7 percent are over 60 years old. Most of them, as we
know, reside in Athens (60 percent) and Salonica (15 percent).
Age groups
Percentage
0–19 36.8 %
20–49 46.6 %
over 50 16.6 %
Total 100.0 %
Table 3: Pontian Greeks according to age before
leaving the former Soviet Union
Source: Kasimati, 1993b
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