The Last Chairmaker
Georgios, the chairmaker (Mar 2020)
Georgios is the last handmade traditional Cyprus chairmaker in Paphos, and maybe one of the last in Cyprus. We found Georgios sitting on his stool in his workshop one afternoon as we roamed around the old town of Paphos, exploring its major face-over of the past 2-3 years. Once largely a Turkish Cypriot area of noisy workshops, fading homes and small businesses, this past life has been erased. Now, in its 21st century form, it is a mix of bars, cafes, restaurants, and retail, manly fashion shops. The Han is completely unrecognisable as a former caravanserais where travellers might rest, get some food and stable their beasts of burden.
Nestled in these narrow streets in his shaded workshop, cocooned from time’s march, sits Georgios. We find him stretching out the dry reeds that will form the seat of the traditional chairs. He is open to us inviting ourselves to sit with him – kopiaste.
In fact he is very welcoming, pleased to have company to distract him from the radio that hangs just above his head. He sits close to the glass front entrance to catch the light as he works and to watch passers-by. It needs very little invitation for Georgios to open up on his life story. He sets aside his tools, gets comfy and pulls out his cigarettes. In a style that Shakespearian thespians would admire, he embarks on an autobiographical soliloquy whose emphasis is augmented by striking hand gestures and looks of significance.
Georgios is 76. He has been making chairs since he was 11. He tells how he came into this trade. As a schoolboy the Enosis (union with Greece) movement was catching hold. One day Greek national flags started to appear on top of school buildings. The British administration said they would have to come down or the teachers wouldn’t be able to go in and teach.
The flags didn’t come down and the schools remained closed. As a little boy not receiving an education Georgios’ parents said he needed to learn a trade and so the chairmaker was born.
He volunteers that as he plied his trade in the mixed Turkish and Greek Cypriot workshops he had been on good terms with his Turkish neighbours. However, he admits that as a young upstart serving his military service at the time of the 1963-4 bi-communal troubles, he got caught up in the times – he doesn’t go into details, but looks away, occupied by his memories.
He rolls forward to 1974 by which time he concedes that he had grown up, regretting the flight of his Turkish Cypriot neighbours to the north. A few have comeback to have a look at their old homes and neighbourhoods but he expresses severe doubts that any would want to come back permanently should there be ‘lyssi’ (solution) one day.
Today he comes in every day to his workshop. He has slowed down with age and can only make about one and half chairs a day. These he sells for 38 euros each, which lets him clear about 20 euros a day. But it is clear that it is not the money that keeps him coming to work as he asks rhetorically what else would he do. Here in his workshop he can host his friends for a chat. It seems that every morning the workshop doubles up as a kaffeneion where old men sit around to discuss affairs of the day and solve the world’s problems, as they have done all their lives, and men like them for generations all over Cyprus.
Georgios lights up another cigarette as he tells us to come back one morning for a coffee and a chat. We say we will.