Greece's Haven Hotel

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2018

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a rundown neighbourhood in Athens there is a hotel with 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms. But the roof leaks and the lifts are permanently out of action. None of the guests pay a penny, but everyone's supposed to help with the cooking and cleaning. City Plaza is a seven-storey super squat housing 400 refugees from 16 different countries and the volunteers who support them. The hotel went bankrupt during the financial crisis. It remained locked and empty until 2015, when Europe closed its borders leaving tens of thousands of refugees trapped in Greece. Then a group of activists broke in, reconnected the electricity and water and invited hundreds of migrants from the streets to take up residence with them. The leftist Greek government has so far turned a blind eye and now mainstream NGOs like MSF and even the UNHCR have started cooperating this illegal project. For Crossing Continents, Maria Margaronis finds out how the hotel operates and get to know the people inside.

Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou. Photo Credit: Maria Margaronis / BBC

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There's a hotel in Athens that has 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms.
0:07.0	But it's a hotel in Athens that has 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms. But it's not because it's luxurious or grand.
0:17.0	Okay, all you're aware, what's happening here?
0:20.0	We haven't driven.
0:21.0	There is a big problem in the planting and the planted.
0:25.0	Some people stay for just a few days.
0:28.0	Others live here for months.
0:29.0	You baby.
0:31.0	Baby.
0:32.0	You know, she can walk.
0:34.0	This one was born here.
0:35.0	Yeah, actually in here or in the home.
0:38.0	A third of the guests are children and they're everywhere, skipping, shouting, playing, climbing on the furniture or into random laps, turning loose shelves into slides.
0:50.0	By nine o'clock at night, it's pandemonium, a children's party gone mad.
0:55.0	I'm Maria Margaronis, and for this week's assignment I'm in Athens,
1:02.0	visiting an experiment in living.
1:04.4	A seven-story squatted hotel where refugees from 16 different countries and the
1:09.3	volunteers who support them live and work together.
1:12.2	City Plaza was once an ordinary hotel, but it went
1:16.1	bankrupt in 2010 as the Greek crisis hit. It stood locked and empty until April 2015, when Europe closed its borders and many thousands
1:25.1	of migrants found themselves trapped in Greece. Actually mainland Greece and
1:30.0	the islands were transformed into prisons for migrants.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.