By Professor Anastasios Tamis.

On Monday, April 3 this year at Victoria Government House in Melbourne, the Governor of Victoria, The Honourable Linda Dessau AC CVO awarded a royal distinction and decorated the businessman and benefactor of Hellenism, Andreas Georgiou Andrianopoulos.

This well-deserved recognition comes because of a long-term contribution to the community events of Arcadian Hellenism, but also as a just judgment of many years of contribution and beneficence to various activities of Hellenism, from literature and culture as well as to cancer research.  

Andreas Andrianopoulos was judged by his nominators and assessors and their verdict was approved by the Government Council of Distinctions fairly because his contribution was not only generous, but also important and fundamental. His sponsorships and his moral and material benefaction contributed to the creation of new knowledge, the promotion of research, the implementation of learning programs, the publication of books, and the beautification of churches and buildings of the Greek Orthodox Church.

His business evolution undoubtedly impresses. From a taxi, Ririka, having as his motto, that “the wheel must always spin on the asphalt in order to prosper,” he increased their number. He then sold them to invest in petrol stations and then in a chain of petrol stations and later in large station centers with dozens of stores flanking his petrol business. His main skills and virtues have been his way of approaching. His social friendliness, his generosity and his ability to avoid, when he could, provoking reactions and competition. 

It had its own principles, its own strategic goals. He was ambitious,  curious, unruly, rebellious but also brilliantly inventive, creative, and hardworking. He wanted himself and his associates to possess skills that bring you closer to people, to possess abilities that enhance their insight and establish them in the consciousness of their fellow human beings as reliable individuals. All these were ingredients for success, qualities of a life with goals and expectations. This is how Andreas Andrianopoulos saw himself when he started building his family and establishing his businesses.

It was recorded in the past: The above values accompanied his life: a shepherd boy from Arcadia, who at the age of six tamed Mount Artemisio and its ravines. At the age of eight he guarded flocks of sheep and goats entrusted to him by his family. At thirteen, he ran away from home and fled as an immigrant to Tripoli. He slept on a mattress on the floor, accepted the first blanket to be covered from the harsh cold of the plateau by his comrades Pikerniotes who studied at the Tripoli High School and felt him as their brother.

At the age of fourteen he accepted the hospitality of the pastry chef’s boss who protected him in his home. In his shop, the famous patisserie “Krinos,” Andreas lit the cauldrons of the workshop even from dawn, wiped and helped the master in confectionery, set up an ear and learned from conversations at the tables of the patrons, who took their dessert and coffee, participated, listened, learned, lived the dream of the city.

At the age of 15, he acquired rights to the shop. He became an assistant pastry chef, won the love of his masters and was accepted by the strong and powerful of Tripoli, who gathered to enjoy their dessert with their families. As he came down at dawn from his house for work, he passed by the hotel the Semiramis, the place where King Paul and his entourage used to stay when he visited Arcadia. Andreas stood outside the hotel’s kitchen to breathe the aroma of onion with minced meat prepared for their guests’ breakfast by the cooks. Since he couldn’t afford to enjoy it.

At the age of 16, he was given responsibilities by his pastry shop bosses. He became the purchase manager; he bought the milk and eggs from the farmers who came down from the villages of the plateau; he was responsible for the quality of the milk and eggs, for the price at which he would buy the material. He was now a conductor who was waking him up. Then he met fraternal friends who were studying at the Tripoli Gymnasium from Poletta, Silimna, Pikerni, Palladio and the other villages. They played like children on snowy afternoons, climbed the paddock to watch the football match, and experienced moments of triumph when they could watch a black-and-white movie together.

At the age of 18, he had spread his wings because even Tripoli could no longer fit him. His bosses tried to keep him from leaving the cake shop, offering him gifts and honors, promising him positions.

In his twenties, he immigrated to Australia and found himself living with the Aborigines in the desert of Seduna, repairing train tracks then the trams of Melbourne, later the railways, and then the factories of General Motors with thousands of other Arcadians flocking from the 280 villages of Arcadia, and then came the first taxi. The second, the third and then an abandoned mechanical workshop, a car repair shop with an old petrol pump.

At the age of 25, he had married his wife, Sophia, he drove a beautiful Holden, Ririka, he had his taxis, he met the late Rev. Ierotheos Kourtessis, the photographers of the time, he contracted weddings, with white gloves, hat, suit and tie. He made friends, he laid the foundations of tomorrow.

In his thirties he began the march to triumph. He had set up there in Collingwood the hangout  of Greek taxi drivers, who were waiting in queues to put cheap gasoline at a cheap price, to drink their Greek coffee, to discuss  their hardships, to talk about the political situation in Greece, about the antagonisms in the Greek community, their ideological conflicts. It was called Andreas’hangout by some.

At forty came the triumph. He was the first to be inspired and introduced cheap petrol in Victoria. Queues of five hundred metres lined up outside the Elgin Street petrol station in Carlton, guarded even by police, the “golden corner” as he was later called. After the third and fourth service stations, then suddenly, the four became eight, and before he was fifty years old, he made ten of them.

All four of his boys (Giorgos, Christos, Nikos and Dimitris), who worked after school in the family business, came to his side. They danced in front of the pumps with other workers, filled cars with petrol, served customers, learned the job, learned its secrets. Eventually, they would all work together with their father. The weddings of his children came, and the relatives from Greece came to testify to his happiness, his social and economic recognition.

At the age of 60, he was the only Greek who had conquered the oil market, conversing with the powerful of the mighty multinational corporations. He took BP’s unnecessary and useless petrol stations and turned them into a source of power and wealth, transformed them, embellished them, gave the stations his own personal colour. And that was twenty, and then thirty, and then fifty, and sixty stations all over Melbourne and around its highways.

In his seventies, he set up petrol centres on the inwards and outwards of the major thoroughfares, department stores, with eight or ten shops each, with amenities and facilities, with laundries and rest rooms for drivers. Large portions of land around them were bought and the first plots were later cut.

For 87 years now, Andreas has been creating, building, dreaming, performing magnificent achievements. He bought the Semiramis Hotel in Tripoli, built a most impressive and votive castle in Pikerni, employed dozens of workers there for years.

In Australia, one success followed another. However, the meaning of life is not the accumulation of wealth. Aristotle said that a man who lives only to accumulate wealth and money should be considered a fool, and he valued him as the last in the social class. But when the man who earns money becomes a social sponsor, a patron of letters, a patron of research and technology, the arts, a custodian of learning and theater, then this rich man rises first in the social class.

Without sponsors there would have been no knowledge, neither the creation of culture and civilisation in Ancient Greece. Without sponsors there would be no Renaissance in Europe. This is how Andreas saw the meaning of his life. Dividends from profits return to humanity, through donations to cancer research foundations, universities, research programs, publications, church establishments. This is how his good and prudent companion Sophia, who left earthly life years ago, perceived her life. This is how his children and grandchildren, who have joined his businesses, live and perceive their business.

This is how the Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry saw the progress of this precious man and honored him three years ago with the Spyros Stamoulis Award for his valuable contribution as an Excellence in Business Conquest and Life Success. This is how he was recently honored with royal distinction. We are proud to share his friendship. His presence makes us all richer, more active, and aware citizens.

With the aging of the Greek Diaspora and the biological exodus of vulnerable Greek immigrants, the models of beneficence and giving, such as Zissis Dardalis, Andreas Andrianopoulos, Byron Theofanis, Tassos Revis, Spyros Stamoulis, Grigoris Kaias, Georgios Stamas, Nikos Theodosiadis (Thyssen) and so many other “Greek-born” benefactors, living and dead, are reference models and worthy models that should show the way of giving and contributing to progress. These models of giving, these individuals who, through the struggle initially for survival and then for their recognition, showed their love to Hellenism, distributing part of their wealth, must be remembered forever, as the Nurturers of the Nation.