Andreas Syngros

                Andreas Syngros                                    ΑΝΔΡΕΑΣ ΣΥΓΓΡΟΣ                                                

                 Born 1830                                                Died Feb 2 1899

              Section  8, Number 319

Andreas Syngros was one of Greece’s greatest benefactors and proof that an ambitious lad with connections could not only get ahead but thrive and prosper in the turbulent period after Greek independence when it was, not only possible, but desirable, for a Greek with mercantile inclinations to have a foot firmly planted in both the Greek and Ottoman World.

His Life

 Andreas was born in 1830 along with the Greek nation. He was the son of a Chiot father who was doctor to the Sultan’s sister.  Although born in Constantinople, he received most of his early education in Hermoupolis  on Syros. While there, he must have absorbed the entrepreneurial atmosphere of the island because he chose to become a businessman rather than follow in his father’s footsteps.

 

At a young age he worked for an import-export merchant in Constantinople, but in 1863 he turned his sights to banking and became one of the founders of the Bank of Constantinople. Banking was the road to success in that era and he very quickly became wealthy. (1)

In 1871 Syngros moved to Athens where, together with other members of the Constantinople and Odessa Greek diaspora, he founded the General Credit Bank (Ethniki Pistotiki Trapeza).

Like so many Greek entrepreneurs of this era, Syngros wanted a house to match his prestige and, using a plan of Ernst Ziller, Athens’ most popular and prolific architect, Syngros did just that. He built his imposing mansion on what is now Bas. Sophia  Avenue  just opposite the king’s palace (today’s parliament building).  It was completed in 1873.

Wiki Commons

Today this mansion is the core of the headquarters of the Greek Foreign Ministry



Syngros seems to have the happy faculty of knowing what he was good at. He cheerfully agreed in his memoirs that the mansion cost him a third more than it should have because he did not supervise the building himself as his friends had suggested. He argued that the time taken would not have been as profitable as the same time span spent dealing with financial matters, his own area of expertise, - so that the loss for him was, in fact, a bargain.

In 1873, he bought the silver mines in Lavrio, thus solving a thorny issue worrying the state at the time. The mines had been leased to an Italian, Giovanni Serpieri, and because the mines initially prospered, nationalist sentiment kicked in. Why should a foreigner reap profits from the famous mines of antiquity? Serpieri refused to sell his lease back to the Greek state but Syngros made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse: a partnership in the new “Greek” company.

   It was an arrangement that all sides could live with and Serpieri joined the other mansion builders who were decorating the wide avenues of the city centre.

The fact that ordinary investors lost a fortune in the mine’s stock shortly afterwards, did nothing to diminish the wealth of Syngros. 

He became an important figure in the life of Athens’ elite, developing strong ties with the monarchy, the political figures of the day, and even dabbling in politics. Where movers and shakers are concerned, Athens has always been a small town…

In 1881, Syngros founded the Privileged Bank of Epirus and Thessaly in Volos to help the economy of the newly annexed Greek territories of Epiros and Thessaly. His bank had the right to issue banknotes in these territories. 

Like so many wealthy Greeks in this era of no taxes for the super rich Syngros  and his wife Iphigenia Mavrokordatos, whom he had married when he was 45, became avid philanthropists. During a speech to Parliament around 1880, Syngros admitted that under Greek law he paid almost no taxes.

 Andreas Syngros

 Iphigenia Mavrokordatos Syngros

 The list of their contributions to Greece both before and after their deaths is an impressively long one: 

 

Syngros financed the building of an avenue from the Royal Palace to the bay at Palaio Faliro, today’s Syngrou Avenue.

He financed the completion of the Corinth Canal in 1893 (the longest ongoing construction project ever: Nero had started it). 
 
He helped finance the Evangelismos Hospital, a prison and a poorhouse for women, the National Theatre, and a hospital for the treatment of venereal  diseases which still bears his name.

He built the archaeological museums of Delphi and Olympia. 

There is much more: Chios, Syros, Thessaloniki, and the Patriarchate in Constantinople were all recipients of his largesse.

What is striking about all this is the fact that these projects from our modern perspective seem to properly belong to the sphere of governmental projects rather than projects for the newly rich.

 The vast wealth amassed by Greek entrepreneurs in this era is a controversial subject and food for thought. The Greek state was either bankrupt or short of funds from its inception and intermittent reforms had little impact on this reality. Certainly the idea that any moneys garnered are better off in private hands as opposed to the state treasury is an idea that modern Greeks seem to subscribe to as well.

The upshot is that Greece in the nineteenth century was built by its many wealthy benefactors who chose to invest their wealth in the country and, by doing so privately, retained the right to choose just how they would go about it.

 Amazingly, they often chose well. No wonder Andreas Syngros’ funeral was such a grand affair including the King and Queen of Greece and the prime Minister.
 His wife, who was his sole heir, left their two estates to the Greek state upon her death in 1921.

The life of Andreas Syngros makes for fascinating reading.  What had first struck me as an almost too grandiose mausoleum tucked away in the First Cemetery, now looks rather modest in the light of his amazing contribution to Greece. 

Detail of his Mausoleum with a tree growing from the wonderfully ornate roof! 

Graves, once purchased in the First Cemetery, became the private property of their owners but it seems a pity that the city Syngros did so much for, does not interfere in this case and repair their mausoleum.

Inside the Mausoleum

  His Tomb is to be found in  Section  8, Number 319

Footnote

(1)  In the 18^th and nineteenth century, Constantinople was the financial centre of the Levant.  Debt fueled the rise of many bankers be they Jewish, Greek, or Armenian. Between 1800 and 1850 much of the Ottoman debt was owned by a few dozen extremely wealthy money men. The years after 1850 were the best years for Greek bankers like Syngros and Christakis Zographos. By 1870, the Greeks had a near monopoly on lending money to the Sultan because so many of them also had connections in banking houses in Europe. Our source for this is worth a look:

Centers and Peripheries in Banking: the Historical development of Financial Markets. (Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 2007)