By Panagiotis Dalatariof.
Antonis Saoulis has been a reporter for the Olympiacos Football Club, Editor-in-Chief of Gazzetta and now Product / Owner Leader at Sportal.gr.
Despite this, there was also a special time in his life when Antonis served as an Evzone. In an interview with The Greek Herald, Antonis shares what his life was like as an Evzone.
When did you serve as an Evzone? What made you become an Evzone?
It was the year 2008-2009. It wasn’t my choice. In general, it is not anyone’s choice to become an Evzone. It is not a specialty of the Greek army that you choose. I joined the infantry and at the centre where I went to Tripoli, we were visited by officers of the Presidential Guard who choose people who can become Evzones. The minimum criteria were height above 1.85 metres and a relatively athletic body to withstand the training.
What was your life like as an Evzone?
Difficult. As long as you live it, you don’t have time to understand how beautiful it is because the education never stops. When you complete your service, you realise what a special and beautiful experience it was.
But to make you understand, after the first month of hard training and if you manage to get the blue beret of the Evzones, that’s when the real difficulty begins. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday you have training at the National Garden. On Tuesday and Thursday, there is training during the special Evzones parade. On Sunday morning and afternoon you have to go for the raising of the flag at the Acropolis and of course, every Sunday there is the official Changing of the Guard at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier in Athens. It is a wonderful sight that not many Greeks know happens every Sunday at Syntagma. In all of this, of course, there is also our duty at the watchtowers.
What were your obligations and duties?
There are many duties and more obligations within the camp. From the moment you are officially an Evzone, you enter the process of the watchtowers. One hour every eight hours. You know, the one where you see the Evzones standing still. But every time a leader of a foreign country comes, or changes are made to the embassies, then we have other obligations.
Of course, we follow the lead of Greece’s President. When I served, for example, it was Karolos Papoulias who is from Ioannina and in the parade for the liberation of the city we went to Ioannina to march. Every year a group of Evzones travel to New York City in the United States for the celebration of Hellenism and of course, we attend all important parades. It is also our duty to take care of and maintain in good condition our equipment and clothes. The gun should not break, the nails in our tsarouchia should be in place, the tassel should be clean and properly trimmed and of course, we should have a clean shirt, polished buttons and fix the 400 pleats on our fustanella.
How did people react when seeing you?
The truth is that no one can understand awe until they have seen and experienced it. To be honest with you, until I became an Evzone I had never seen their parade but it is such a special and imposing spectacle, that I think the best word to describe it is “awe.” Fifty Evzones in line to parade and hearing the sound of the tsarouchia before you even see them, combined with the band’s rhythm – it is something to be seen. As for the official change in front of the Unknown Soldier, it’s also something amazing. Indeed, this particular change and the steps of the Evzones has been described as the most difficult in the world of all armies.
The moment someone comes to take a picture with you, isn’t it annoying? How hard is it to stay still?
It’s a classic question: How hard is it to stay still? On the first day of training, we were told “know stillness will be the easy thing. It will be your rest. The hard part will be the steps.” The truth is, I didn’t believe it, but I understood it afterwards.
The steps, that is, lifting your legs at right angles to your body in order to move forward, is something extremely difficult that requires a lot of exercise. As for the photo, it is not difficult. From the moment you pass the training you are ready to stand still and not respond. The only difficult thing for me was when little kids came. Not because they teased you, but because they could say “Look mom, he moved” and then you get in trouble.
What is the most characteristic moment you remember as an Evzone?
Three moments. One pleasant, one unpleasant and one funny. The pleasant one was in Giannina. When we went out to parade there I felt like I scored a goal in the 90th minute. I never heard such an outburst before.
The sad thing was the murder of Grigoropoulos. In fact, I was also on watch when many incidents took place in Syntagma and the Christmas tree was burning. With tear gas and fire and we there motionless on our watch. Obviously we weren’t harmed by any protesters.
And the funny moment was when one Sunday we went up to the Acropolis for the flag raising. Unfortunately, however, it started raining and as a result, the tsarouchia shoes slipped on the marble and we all fell down.
