The Brothers Panayiotis and Nikolaos Emm. Kontonleontos

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


In the small country town of Cooma, in New South Wales, the famous Mt. Kosciusko, which, at some 6000 feet high, is considered to be the tallest in all of Australia.

On the peak of this mountain stands an extremely luxurious hotel. In the hotel, artificial means ensure that a reasonable temperature is maintained, because the hotel is always under snow, particularly during winter, when it is deep. Skating is practiced when conditions allow, by Australian ladies and gentlemen, who have come to admire this splendid sight.

In this country town, Messrs. Panayiotis and Nikolaos Kontoleontos have possessed a shop since 1912.

They are extremely young and are no enemies to hard work and economies, to which they owe their acquisition of their establishment. They bought it from Mr. Konstantinos P. Kritikos, who now resides in Kythera and who was once advisor to the Greek Community of New South Wales.

Their commercial name is Comino Bros., and they enjoy the esteem and affection of all the inhabitants of this small country town.


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.