Smyrna is one of the oldest Greek cities and ports of the Mediterranean and ancient Ionia.
It was founded around 3000 BC and has survived to this day.
In its long history it has changed two places.

The first of the prehistoric times mentioned by Strabo as “Old Smyrna” and the second built by Alexander the Great and his descendants during the Hellenistic period. In the Roman era it gained glory.
The Romans honored it three times with the laudatory title of “neokorou” due to its amazing prosperity.

In 1424 the region was conquered by the Ottomans.
However, before, but also after its occupation, the Venetians and Genoese tried several times to include it in their Republics.
On September 13, 1472, the Venetians, under Pietro Mocenigo, in an unsuccessful attempt, conquered and destroyed the city.
It was inhabited by Greek populations from antiquity until the Destruction of Smyrna in 1922 and the population exchange that followed with the Treaty of Lausanne.

The Greek population of Smyrna had suffered massacres even before 1922.
The first significant case was during the Orlovian period in 1770. At that time, about 4,000 armed Muslims from various places had flocked to Smyrna in order to confront a possible Russian landing.
When on July 8, the destruction of the Ottoman fleet in the naval battle of Çeşme became known, a Muslim mob resorted to a massacre of Greeks and Christians, even Europeans, in revenge.
According to the French consul Peysonnais’ estimate, 1000-1500 people were massacred. At that time, the number of Greeks in the city was about 20,000.

Massacres against Greeks also took place in March 1797, on the occasion of the murder of a Janissary by Christians.

In retaliation, Janissaries and Muslim mobs killed about 1500 to 2000 Greeks, according to estimates by foreign diplomats living in Smyrna.

The “Philomusos and Philanthropist Greek Commercial Company” was established in Smyrna, the profits of which were collected for the Greek Revolution.

Michael Naftis was appointed head of the Smyrna Ephorate.
Kyriaki Nafti from Smyrna, wife of Michael, was the first female member of the Friendly Society.

Massacres also occurred during the first months of the Revolution of 1821.
The news of the revolution in Wallachia reached Smyrna on March 17/29, when mass persecutions and massacres of Greeks, even Westerners (“Franks”), began.

The events were described, among others, by the American Pliny Fisk, who lived in the city, as well as by the Ionian Spyridon Destounis, Russian consul in Smyrna.

An unknown donor from Asia Minor purchased gunpowder from Smyrna and Ayvalik and secretly offered it to the Struggle in mid-March 1821.
With this gunpowder, Kalamata was liberated. In total, he bought 270 barrels of gunpowder – 12 okadas each – and six cantaria of lead (each cantaria equals 57 kilograms) and offered them as a donation to the Struggle, bound for the Peloponnese.
The precious cargo was transported from Smyrna with captain Christoforos Mexis.
The ship managed to pass all the sea blockades and anchored in the Peloponnese.
The gunpowder arrived in Messinia at night and was then transported on mules, from Almyros of Verga to the Monastery of Mardaki in Nedousa, so that the cartridges for the Struggle could be prepared.

According to the census of the British Consulate in 1891, the wider area of ​​Smyrna (Aydin Province) at that time had a total population of 207,000.
Of these, Greeks were 107,000, Turks 52,000, Jews 23,000, Armenians 12,000, Italians 6,500, French 2,500, Austrians 2,200 and English 1,500.
While the French traveler Decham, who was in Smyrna between 1888-1889, reports that 80,000 Greeks lived in the city.

Until the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922, Smyrna (the city alone) had a population of 370,000, of whom 165,000 were Greeks, 80,000 Ottoman Turks, 55,000 Jews, 40,000 Armenians, 6,000 Levantines and 30,000 various other foreigners.
According to George Horton, the American consul of the city, Smyrna at that time exceeded 500,000 inhabitants. The dominant language was Greek, from which the city had a pure Greek color with relatively developed trade and cultural events, so that it was called by the Turks as “Gâvur İzmir” (Infidel Smyrna) and by the Europeans as the Paris of the Levant.

The continuous increase in foreign merchants since the 16th century made it one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the time and certainly the largest port in the Eastern Mediterranean.
This presence was marked by the various projects that were assigned to them, mainly by wealthy Greek merchants who had contacts with Europe.
Thus, the customs house of Smyrna was built by Gustave Eiffel, architect of the eponymous Parisian Tower, the Kai by a French company with slabs from Naples, while the Clock in the Government House Square (Konak) was a gift from William II.

European architecture in combination with local gave the term “Smyrnaean house” as something unique in its kind. The well-traveled Adamantios Korais reported about his homeland, Smyrna, that the elegance of its residences is comparable to that of Paris.
Foreign and Greek clubs operated in the city, organizing dances and other receptions, usually for charitable purposes.

Smyrna extends from the SW foothills of Sipylos and the NE foothills of Pagos (Kandife Kale) to the coast, where the wonderful “Kai” waterfront extends N.-S. from opposite the Aydin railway station, the so-called Pounda (Al Sajak), northern end of the waterfront, to the old command post (Konaki), southern end.

Until 1922, the city was divided into the “Upper Mahala”, (Melandia, Basmane) which was located towards the Pagos and was the oldest part of the city, where mainly wealthy Turks, Jews and a few Greeks lived, and the “Lower Mahala” or “Lower City”, a newer part, where the mainly Christian population, the Armenians (south), and the Greeks (north of the Armenians) lived, up to the NW coast, the so-called Kordelio.

The lower town included the Armenian Quarter (which bordered the Jewish quarter of Pano Mahala) with the church of Agios Stefanos and the Greek quarter with the church of Agios Georgios, the “Megales Tavernes” market, the “Gialadika” quarter, where the famous church of Agia Fotini was located, further north the Fragomachalas (the Catholic quarter), the Hospitals quarter and further on the Fasoulas quarter, where immediately after it began the central Trasa (ta) street (an internal street parallel to the waterfront), the aristocratic quarter with the square of Kallithea (Bela Vista) and the parallel street, known by corruption as “Paralleli” with the mansions of the wealthy Smyrnaeans.

The continuation of the Trassos street was Schinodika, Kerasochori, and Alioti Boulevard towards the Aidini railway station.
The district of Pounda followed with Italian and Maltese residents and inland the popular districts of “Agios Tryfonas” or Tsikoudia, “Tambakika” (tanneries), “Mortakia” or Ligaria, as well as the district of Agios Konstantinos beyond the Kasamba station with its continuation “Chiotika”.

During the Catastrophe of Smyrna in 1922, with its great fire, almost the entire Kato Mahalas was destroyed from the Armenian Quarter to Schinodika.
Among the Christian victims of Turkish atrocities was Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Smyrna, who was arrested, tortured and dismembered by the Turkish mob, dying a martyr’s death on August 27, 1922.

Along with the Metropolitan, two prominent members of the Asia Minor Defense were also murdered by the Turkish mob, the elder Georgios Klimanoglou and the eminent lawyer Nikolaos Tsourouktsoglou.

The massacres of Greeks and Armenians by the Turks led the American Consul in Smyrna, George Horton, to write:

“One of the strongest feelings I took with me from Smyrna was the feeling of shame, because I belonged to the human race”