submitted by
Peter Tsicalas
on 10.01.2005

A few years back I wrote to the mayor of Kythera suggesting it would be a wonderful service to ignorant diasporans like myself if he drew up a set of guidelines for obtaining birth/death/marriage certificates, which I would then publish on the ‘Voyage to Kythera’ site. Can’t remember how I sold the idea, but I’m sure I would’ve laid it on with a trowel and implied that such a samaritan act would be rewarded with a high place in heaven, in addition to many temporal drachmas pouring into the Kytherian coffers in the meantime (like the ‘genealogy industry’ does for Ireland). I assume the deafening silence meant he was unimpressed.

I then wrote with a personal request for a death certificate and included an impressive number of bananas in the envelope. It eventually turned out that a kind-hearted lady in the mayor’s office took it on as a private task and in her own time visited Potamos, where the appropriate records were still held despite amalgamation, and photocopied the relevant register entry.

Prior to the efficiency revolution that saw all the old communes amalgamated under one administrative umbrella the President of the Commune of Potamos provided good service, especially after I discovered the magic worked by including some of the aforementioned folding stuff in the envelope.

I haven’t bothered with any requests over the last few years and can’t say where the revolution’s at, but note that the lack of an official website denies the pleasure of bombarding with spam as a means of getting a BDM procedure published, including exact costs.

In the meantime the only option appears to be to irritate the hell out of the mayor with a stream of snail mail. I’ve heard that you should now be able to write in English, as allegedly a requirement of EU entry was for all government employees down to local government level to be au fait with either English or French. Never tested it though.