Charalambos Nik. Samios

This biography is part of a collection from "Life in Australia" :


In one of the most central locations in the great city of Sydney stand two establishments together. One of these, consisting of five storeys, serves as a hotel and contains about 100 rooms. The other, consisting of three floors, is a richly furnished café.

Any who gazes on these magnificent buildings can only admire the commercial spirit of the Greek who, without any help, in a foreign land, manages in a short time, thanks to his construction of these splendid establishments, to be a notable contributor to the progress made by this great city. And so, admiration and praise are rightly the lot of the managers and owners, who come from Kythera, Messrs. Haralambos and Ioannis Nik. Samios, together with their cousin, Mr. Konstantinos I. Kasimatis.


This biography is part of a collection from "Life in Australia" published in 1916 by John Comino. It is an important book as it was one of the first Greek books published in Australia for the Greeks back in the homeland. If they needed any more convincing of the golden opportunities awaiting them in Australia, it probably helped create interest amongst young Kytherians and other Greeks. Each of the men portrayed in the book paid for the honour, which, considering their reputation for thriftiness, must have made the decision a hard one for many a Kytherian.

The Kythera-Family.net team, with the support of the Nicolaus Aroney Trust and other generous sponsors, has undertaken to transcribe the entire book for the website and to translate it into English for the non-greek-speaking diaspora community. We hope to also produce a printed version of the translation of Life in Australia sometime in 2005.

For valuable information about the historical background of the publication of Life in Australia, please read the entry by Hugh Gilchrist I ZOI EN AFSTRALLIA in the History, General History section.