In Perama, a cafe has been built that will provide services for today, but with a strong imprint of yesterday.
Behind this revival, the restoration of this cafe, which dates back to 1880-90, is the Turkish businessman, Mr. Rahmi Koc with strong ties to Lesvos, who commissioned his antique dealer and friend – for over 35 years – Dimitris Demertzis, to present it again for today, but with the image of yesterday.
“Perama is a village in Gera. It is in the bay of Gera and Mr. Rahmi has bought a house here because he loves Lesvos very much.
One day, while taking a walk here in the square, he saw this building that was in very bad condition and he said let’s buy this and fix it up, let’s bring it back to yesterday.
And this thing really happened and he is interested in it being something that is worth it.
There is a great history in Perama and it is a magical place that anyone who comes and sees it is really impressed”, he says and adds:
“Mr. Rahmi has a great culture, he likes all this stuff, that is why he is involved.
He has one of the largest museums in Istanbul, in Ayvalik he likes this. And what we did is to really give the past. as it was. From people’s testimonies how the furniture was, everything was the same, the frames.
It is an ornament here in the place. In the past, in this shop, they made agreements for oils, for soaps, for all of this today we are interested in showing that here too the region has nice products, it has the ouzo which is fantastic, the oils, the honeys, soaps, it has many things that we want from it.
The people who come to taste the local products. Mr. Rahmi is interested in the place coming to life here.
Let people come and see that this is indeed a sign that we must pay attention to the past”, as Mr. Demertzis said, among other things.