In early April we have learnt with great regret of the passing of Antonis Sotiriou, the owner of Athena Marmor company from Warsaw. He has been Świat Kamienia friend for 17 years. He supported our initiatives, like, for example, laying stone mosaic tiles by kids.

Antonis was Greek who was born in Volos, a beautiful town near the Aegean Sea coast, just at the bottom of the Pelion mountain which is famous for mythological Centaur. Sotiriou was widely known as a founder, owner and president of the board of Athena Marmor Polska limited company which has been on the stone market since 1997. This company specialises in importing natural stone. At first the company imported stone only from Greece, but now they are doing it from quarries all over the world. The company offers wholesale and retail sale, production of various finished products made of natural stone as well as installation of stones. Athena Marmor is the only Polish company that produces stone mosaic tiles.    

Antonis Sotiriou started working for stone industry in 1986. He was a graduate of Management and Marketing Department at Piraeus University. He also obtained post-graduate degrees in New York and London. Once, in his interview with Świat Kamienia, when he was speaking about his life, he said that the biggest accomplishment in his life was the fact that it had been a great success for him to live and invest in Poland for such a long time. It was possible in a country where he was illiterate, both deaf and mute. As a foreign investor in Poland he felt he was doing things intuitively, in the dark. He spent his free time, which he did not have much of, on meeting friends, reading books, walking with his dog and surfing in the internet. Words taken from Ithaca by a famous Greek poet Konstantinos Kawafis accompanied him throughout his life. In his poem Kawafis compares life to Odysseus's journey home. He wrote, among others, that "When you set out on your way to Ithaca, you should hope that your journey is a long one: a journey full of adventure, full of knowing...”  

 

Photo: Antonis Sotiriou 1954 - 2017