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Dimitris Pierides is 85, an absolutely charming gentleman of the old sort with a beautiful mind and a heart full of amazing stories. We talked about Art, cars, Cyprus and life, definitely worth listening to.

He is the son of one of the most emblematic families of Cyprus, born in 1937, luckily in a house that mostly resembled a museum and belonged to his grandfather Dimitirs Pierides, who also bore the name of his own grandfather, a renowned scholar of the 19th century, who was one of Kapodistria\u2019s partners and an antiquities collector. Their colonial home in Larnaka was filled with antiquities that on one hand made it hard for little Dimitris to play in the house, but on the other, prepared him to welcome his illustrious destiny. \u201cThose were the years of innocence\u201d he remembers. \u201cGrowing up in a big home, filled to the brim with ancient Cypriot artifacts collected by five generations of Pierides\u2019, it was obviously not the ideal playground for my friends and I.

At the age of 18, Dimitris Pierides enrolled at the University of Lausanne where he studied Economics and Law. He soon became very popular and during the period between 1957 and 1960 he served as chairman of the Greek Students\u2019 Union. According to him, those were wonderful years that formed the basis of his subsequent cosmopolitan spirit. \u201cI studied in the heart of Europe, in an exquisitely civilized place. I frequently travelled by car to many of the neighboring countries, very often to Paris and London. I also travelled to Germany, as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria. As for Italy, the European jewel, I have visited her dozens of times over the years\u201d he adds with emphasis.

In the summer of 1974, the Turkish invasion changed everything. Dimitris Pierides emerged from the ashes, not unscathed though: \u201cA huge part of my fortune (approximately 85%) was simply gone in just a single morning of August 1974. I was bluntly told then, that whatever I had created during my most productive years, no longer belonged to me\u201d he remembers. But the great damage to Cyprus\u2019 historical heritage had already started in the mid-60\u2019s. According to him it was some years before the invasion, in 1964 to be precise, when Turkish-Cypriots isolated themselves in their villages and systematic large-scale illegal excavations took place, making antiquity smuggling a thriving activity. \u201cI managed then and for a period of 10 years, to prevent the smuggling of over 600 unique ancient Cypriot artifacts, by buying them\u201d. From then on, \u201cthings went from bad to worse\u201d.

https://www.visitcyprus.com/index.php/en/discovercyprus/culture/museums-galleries/111-pierides-museum-bank-of-cyprus-cultural-foundation