Prosfygika (Greek: Προσφυγικά, meaning "refugees' area") is a neighbourhood in the southern Greek city of Patras. It was founded in 1922 as displaced persons from Asia Minor arrived in the city after the 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish War and the subsequent population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
It brought in 6 to 7,000 refugees. In the beginning, it built several homes that had a school, union, etc. Later, it built their first refugee houses in the present-day area in that time were made up of straws and olive groves. The first inhabitants were from the area and many were small with two bedrooms. All of them had a balcony for every housing square.
For many years, it had a largely poor population and it is still today a poor community. In 1925 it had several clubs founded by the refugees and they are Olympiakos Patras, Thyella, Aris Patras, Apollon, AEK Patras and Patraikos. In 1925, it constructed an arena for Olympiakos in today's Prosfygika Field which is one of the oldest fields in Greece. The residents are workers and it has cafeterias and shops named after the older areas of Istanbul (Constantinople).
References
- The first version of the article is translated and is based from the article at the Greek Wikipedia (el:Main Page)