Ttooulis (Christodoulos) Terkourafis

A few years ago, I wrote about the famous Swedish Cyprus Expedition which took place in Cyprus between 1927 and 1931. At the time, I briefly mentioned that there was a Cypriot man named Ttooulis (Christodoulos) Terkourafis who was instrumental in helping the Swedish archaeologists with their work. Like so many of my untold stories, I soon discovered that there wasn’t a lot written about Ttooulis and so, I took the challenge to see what I could find. That was two years ago and although there are still many unknown details and facts, I did manage to learn something about this mysterious man. I hope you enjoy today’s article and once again, if you know something about Ttooulis that could hopefully fill in some of the gaps in his life story, please leave a comment below or contact me directly. Ttooulis (Christodoulos) Terkourafis was born in Kyrenia on the 5th May, 1897. He was the eldest of six children born to Konstantinos (Kostis) Terkourafis and Eleni (Elengou) Konstantinides including Giannis, Rebecca, Savvas, Maria, and Nikolas. Apparently, Maria and Nikolas died quite young (unknown reasons) while Rebecca was committed to an asylum for mental health issues (details unknown). The origin of the name Terkourafis is a mystery too, although there is some speculation that it may be connected to the Turkish pronunciation of the word ‘telegraph man’, as this was the occupation of one of Ttooulis’ forefathers in the late nineteenth century. Together with his brother Giannis, Ttooulis operated a successful taxi service sometime between 1918 and 1927. Initially, they used a horse and wagon to transport goods and passengers between Kyrenia and Nicosia before switching to the newly-invented automobile (maybe a Ford). Ttooulis was possibly one of the first automobile drivers in the region at that time and gained a reputation as a competent and skilled chauffeur. In 1928, Ttooulis was hired by Einar Gjerstad, to be the driver for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, on the recommendation of Loukas Z Pierides. I’ve read two accounts on how he came to the attention of the Swedes. According to Gjerstad himself, Ttooulis was discovered by chance. “A few days after my arrival in Cyprus,” he writes, “Pierides and I were driving through Nicosia. I had already mentioned to him the fact that the expedition needed a chauffeur. Suddenly Pierides stopped the car, pointed to a fat little man who was sitting drinking his coffee on a chair outside a café and said ‘That’s a man who was once honest with me in a situation where anybody else would have been dishonest.’ These words were enough for me and Ttooulis was hired on the spot.” Another version states that the Swedes stumbled upon Ttooulis, waiting for them near their automobile, as they were returning from a site visit. He was actually sitting under a tree with an ancient pot that he had restored. The pot was almost seamlessly put together from sherds. This greatly impressed the Swedes and they hired him to be part of their team. Apart from driving the imported Volvo automobile (which was nicknamed Jakob), Ttooulis was trusted with other tasks and trades, including restoring antiquities. “He could build a statue from numerous pieces of terracotta and an ancient vase from many small fragments,” writes Gjerstad. For Ttooulis, the Swedes represented the pinnacle of civilization and he felt an affinity and an almost brotherly bond with them. In time, he served as foreman for the processing of the archaeological finds at their newly established Swedish Institute in Nicosia, where he learned how to preserve and restore artefacts. When the Swedish Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf visited Cyprus in early 1931, Ttooulis took pride in driving him around the island and to the various archaeological sites, often acting as his interpreter and private tour guide. In turn, the Crown Prince took a liking to Ttooulis and would later help him to gain a visa and citizenship in Sweden. In terms of his personal life. I have discovered that Ttooulis had a number of significant relationships. In the early 1920s, aged around 27, he married a Cypriot woman name Kyriacou (surname unknown). Sometime in 1925, their daughter Ellou (Eleni) was born. At this point in his life, Ttooulis seemed to be distracted from married life and his duty as a husband and father. He became fascinated with archaeology and the Swedish Expedition and seemed to spend most of his time with the Swedes and their families. So much so that he when the expedition in Cyprus ended in May, 1931 he decided to accompany Einar Gjerstad and the other Swedes back to Stockholm leaving his wife Kyriacou and his daughter Ellou behind. They left the port of Famagusta on the 5th May on a Swedish Orient Line ship named MS Gotland with around 60 percent of the excavated finds (some 771 cases). Together with Ttooulis was another Cypriot employee named, Georgios (George) Kakoullis. Sometime soon after arriving in Sweden, Ttooulis changed his surname from Terkourafis to Souidos, the Greek word for Swedish. In Stockholm he was employed as the curator of the Expedition where he worked closely and specifically with the handling of the Cyprus artefacts. With her husband now working in Sweden, Kyriakou struggled to make ends meet. She went to work as a cook at the Dianellos cigarette factory in Larnaca to support her mother and six-year-old daughter. Apparently, Giannis Terkourafis (Ttooulis’ brother) took care of Kyriacou and Ellou in his absence. It does not appear that Ttooulis sent his wife any money from Sweden, although I cannot be absolutely certain of this. Perhaps he did. In 1939, Ttooulis returned to Cyprus to seek a divorce from Kyriakou. According to a letter his wrote in August that year, his plan was to settle his divorce and then return back to Stockholm where a woman named Inez (Ines) Johansson was waiting for him. In his letter Ttooulis pleads with his Swedish colleagues to let him stay in Cyprus until the end of 1939, in order to resolve his family affairs. “Can you imagine the difficulties I am facing,” he writes. “Every time I say to my daughter that I will leave – she starts crying, I feel so sorry for her, and then I start crying too. She is my child and I cannot deny it. It is a serious situation and it troubles me deeply. Give my regards to Miss Johansson and tell her I will see her soon.” The letter is written in Greek and signed T. Souidos. His daughter Ellou would have been fourteen years old in 1939. Unfortunately for Ttooulis, the outbreak of the Second World War prevented him from leaving Cyprus and returning to Sweden. It was around this time, when he was introduced to a woman named Florenzo Nicola Vey. Florenza Nicola Vey (also known as Fountzou tou Vey) was born around 1909 in the village of Leonarisso. Her father was Nicola Vey. She came from a poor family and was the eldest of her three siblings (Yianni, Andrianni and Maria). Like many children in the region, Florenza was forced to work in the tobacco fields and in the tobacco warehouses. She only went to school for one year, as her teacher would hit her frequently so she refused to go back. Sometime in the late 1920s, Florenza was sent by her parents to work as a house maid for a wealthy lawyer named Chryssafinis and his family in Nicosia. According to her niece, Florenza and Ttooulis met in 1939 after they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Ttooulis was forty-two years old and 12 years her senior. Their relationship was formed during the Second World War and it seemed that they lived together in Nicosia during this time. In 1946, Florenza gave birth to their twin daughters Androulla and Maroulla. Ttooulis remained in Cyprus for nine years. He even managed to find excavation work towards the end of his stay with renowned German archaeologist, Arne Furumark. When Ttooulis left Cyprus to return to Sweden in 1948, Florenza was seven months pregnant with his son Nicos. According to his twin daughters, (Androulla and Maroulla), their mother came home one day to find the wardrobe open and all their father’s clothes and belongings gone. Apparently, he left without warning. They also mentioned that their mother loved Ttooulis very much but they knew nothing about the reasons why their father went back to Sweden or why he stayed away from his family in Cyprus. Florenza died on the 25th March 2011, aged 102. The third significant relationship that Ttooulis had was with the aforementioned Swedish woman, named Inez Johansson. Unfortunately, I cannot find any information about Inez or about her life with Ttooulis. I have discovered that she was born in the city of Örebro, Sweden in 1906 and I can only assume that she must have met Ttooulis sometime in the 1930s after he first arrived in Stockholm. They were probably married in 1949 or perhaps in the early 1950s. Her married name is listed as: Ines Linnéa Vilhelmina Souidos. When the Medelhavsmuseet (Mediterranean Museum) was formed in Stockholm in 1954, Ttooulis was appointed the Curator. He was able to resume his work on repairing and restoring the Swedish Expedition finds until he retired in 1962, at the age of sixty-five. Most of the 18,000 finds uncovered in Cyprus had passed through his hands. This included the careful and delicate restoration of thousands of ceramic fragments and damaged stone sculptures. He is therefore credited with rescuing a wealth of highly valuable cultural material for ongoing scientific research. At the Museum, Ttooulis worked as a conservator and spent considering time teaching young students how to make pots and to repair pottery. One of his students was Birgitta Lindros Wohl, daughter of the expedition photographer, John Lindros. Ttooulis did not see his twin daughters or Florenza again. He did however see his son Nicos (for the first time) when Nicos decided to meet his father to Stockholm in 1971. Apparently, Nicos had stated that his father was very emotional when he saw him and was very sad that he had a son like him and had missed out not being there. Apparently he gave Nicos some money to buy gifts for his mother and sisters. According to his daughters, Androulla and Maroulla, Ttooulis did manage to write to them often from Sweden and he did send their mother money (around ten pounds) once a month until he retired from the Medelhavsmuseet in 1962. Ttooulis Souidos died in Stockholm on the 3rd May 1974, two days shy of his seventy-seventh birthday. He is buried in Sundbyberg in Stockholm. Ttooulis and Inez did not have any children. His obituary (published in the Swedish Newspaper in May 1974), mentioned that he is mourned by his wife Inez and his relatives in Cyprus and London including his daughter Ellou and her husband George. Inez died in 1995 and is buried next to her Cypriot husband. In his memorial, Einar Gjerstad described Ttooulis as having a ‘kind, child-like personality, unspoiled by the world’s wickedness but retaining a spontaneous, cheerfulness with a warm heart and sunny humour.’ Gjerstad gives credit to Ttooulis by stating that the Swedish Expedition could not had functioned without his many achievements and accomplishments, especially with the countless hours of work put into the restoration and conservation of the objects excavated by the Expedition. I hope you have enjoyed reading this brief account of the life of Christodoulos (Ttooulis) Terkourafis). Believe it or not, it has taken a long time for me to gather this much information. I am thankful and grateful that I was able to track down some of his Cypriot relatives and family members, for without their input, this article will be very thin indeed. I am also grateful that the original members of the Swedish Expedition managed to write and publish their thoughts about their adopted Cypriot friend and colleague. I get the impression that Ttooulis adopted them as well as his new Swedish family. I certainly get the impression that he was proud to be associated with the Swedes and perhaps in fact, identified more as a Swede himself, rather than Cypriot. I can also assume that he was fluent in three languages (Cypriot, English and Swedish) and perhaps even spoke Turkish. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I liked to thank Troulla (Dimitroulla) Chrysanthou, Isaac Katekkou and Marina Terkourafi for their time and wonderful support in helping me piece together the various fragments that form the life story of Ttooulis Souidos, (Christodoulos Terkourafis). Thank you also to Jenny Ringarp from The National Museums of World Culture in Göteborg, Sweden. Other sources include: Gjerstad, E. (1980) Ages and Days in Cyprus. Published by Prof. Paul Astroms Forlag Astroms Forlag, P. (2008) The Swedish Cyprus Expedition – 80 Years. Savadalen, Sweden. Serveris, R. (2008) The Swedes in Cyprus. Nicosia. Storica National Geographic N 131 Gennaio. 2020