Thessaloniki has been described as a ‘model for all Greece’, thanks to the reforming zeal of its mayor, Yiannis Boutaris, a straight-talking maverick on a mission to clean up his city.
When Yiannis Boutaris decided to stop drinking alcohol in 1990 no one in Greece knew how to treat alcoholics. They were ignored, or sent to the asylum. So after two painful years of living in denial, he acted on the advice of a concerned American friend and attended an Alcoholics Anonymous clinic in Newport, Rhode Island. The first few months without booze were tough, particularly for a professional winemaker. But he found he had the self-discipline to resist temptation when sampling a new vintage, and hasn’t swallowed a drop for 22 years. ‘I cannot say if it was hard or not,’ he reflects. ‘The thing was, I wanted to get rid of the alcoholic behaviour and the alcoholic situation.’
Having beaten his own addiction, Boutaris is now, as the mayor of Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, trying to persuade one million fellow citizens to kick their own bad habits. He has no doubt about which is the toughest to crack. ‘The biggest problem we have in Greece is that people don’t respect the law,’ he says, as we drive through the town centre. ‘The city is a mess, and it is my duty to clean it up.’
It is hard to argue with this assessment, which is a shame, as Thessaloniki has a lot going for it. Less hectic and less arid than Athens, it is a Byzantine city, with a long, soothing waterfront that guards back lanes and alleys teeming with amiable restaurants offering a little more variety and savoir faire than in Athens. With 150,000 students, more than half of them at Aristotle University – the best in the country – the city has the youthful, arty ambience of fellow ports such as Bristol or Barcelona. But poor management, neglect and, latterly, municipal poverty have left the roads potholed, the pavements cracked and the streets generally filthy. Graffiti is everywhere.
One thing that really upsets the mayor is mass double-parking, something of a local speciality, which on this particular day is preventing municipal tree-pruners from stopping their trucks at the kerbside. ‘Look at that! People don’t give a shit about parking,’ he curses – not an irregular occurrence – as we pass a whole block of double-parked cars. ‘How can we cut the trees if people behave like that?’ he pleads, tossing his hands in frustration.
We are riding in the official mayoral vehicle, which, as it is a Fiat Panda, is a bit of a squish. On his first day in office Boutaris turned down the fancy car enjoyed by his predecessors, opting for this small eco-friendly runaround. ‘I have never used the limousine. It wasn’t for me,’ he says with a shrug of his bony frame. Sometimes he is still to be seen on a bicycle, pedalling to a favourite cafe in what is his native city.
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