Rebetiko and Tavern History

The Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments occupies a restored nineteenth-century mansion with a distinctive ochre facade and a small, walled courtyard in the Plaka neighborhood. Inside, the collection holds over one thousand instruments…

The Polydorou music store features a storefront window packed with the long, pear-shaped bodies of bouzoukis. Inside, the walls display decades of craftsmanship from the family that has run this shop since nineteen thirty-eight. When the…

Abyssinia Square is a rectangular expanse paved with stone that sits in the heart of the Monastiraki district. It hosts the city's most famous flea market, where antiques, rusted tools, and stacks of old records spill onto the sidewalk…

The narrow storefront on Evripidou Street holds a dense collection of traditional stringed instruments like ouds and bouzoukis. Aram Samouelian opened this workshop in nineteen thirty-two after arriving in Athens as a refugee from Turkey.…

The low, stone-walled building with the heavy wooden door serves as a stage for rebetiko, the urban folk music that emerged from the margins of Greek society. In the early twentieth century, musicians played these songs in hashish dens and…

Tavern Klimataria occupies a corner of a building that miraculously survived the massive nineteen forty-four bombing of the surrounding neighborhood during the Dekemvriana battles. While the streets around it were leveled, this basement…

The Diporto tavern sits behind two plain, heavy blue doors that remain flush with the sidewalk. Down a steep, narrow flight of stone steps, the basement floor opens into a dim room where decades of grease have stained the vaulted ceiling a…