Greeks Fleeing Crisis Wind Up in Winnipeg

WINNIPEG, Canada - When Lia Andronikou saw fashionably dressed women in Athens picking food out of garbage cans, she knew it was time to get out of Greece. 'I could see people getting food from the garbage, not only beggars but people with nice clothes,' she recalled recently. Since the start of the economic crisis in Greece in 2007, an estimated 320,000 Greeks have left - most heading to European countries. Now, the Greek economy has got so bad, the educated and ambitious are seeing more of a future in this faraway, frozen flatland. In September, Andronikou, her husband, Stefanos Boukis - a cellist with the Athens Symphony - and year-old daughter, Danae, moved to Winnipeg. They're in the vanguard of the biggest influx of Greek newcomers to Winnipeg since the late 1960s and Greece's last major economic slump.

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.thenationalherald.com