Marousi
Encyclopedia
Marousi alternative forms: Maroussi, Amarousion, and Amaroussion, is a suburban city NE of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. The Athens Olympic Sports Complex
Athens Olympic Sports Complex
The Olympic Athletic Center of Athens "Spiros Louis" or OACA , is a sport facilities complex located at Marousi, northeast Athens, Greece...

, the largest sports complex in Greece, is also located here; its main street is Kifisias Avenue, and also contains four ISAP train stations and two of the Suburban Railway. The region is birthplace of the nationally known Greek actress Aliki Vougiouklaki
Aliki Vougiouklaki
Aliki Vougiouklaki was a Greek actress. She is considered as one of the most popular and successful actresses of Greek cinema.-Biography:...

, and ANT1
ANT1
Antenna, better known as ANT1, is a television network airing in Greece and Cyprus. The alternate spelling is play on words in Greek; ena is the Greek number 1, thus ANT1 is pronounced the same as Antenna . It launched on 31 December 1989, the same year as rival Mega Channel, and is owned by...

 television station and studios are also located in this community, as are the main offices of the Greek subsidiaries of several multinational corporations from Kodak, Bayer
Bayer
Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen , Germany in 1863. It is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and well known for its original brand of aspirin.-History:...

, Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include "Kleenex" facial tissue, "Kotex" feminine hygiene products, "Cottonelle", Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, "KimWipes"...

, Siemens
Siemens AG
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....

, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 to Nestlé
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...

. Amarousion dates back to the era of the ancient Athenian Republic; it ancient name was Athmonon, and it represented one of the 10 Athenian sub-cities. The area held a main ancient temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

, where Amarysia Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

, the goddess of hunting, was adored, and the city's modern name derives from that of the goddess, Amarysia, which denotes the origin of the worship back in Amarynthos
Amarynthos
Amarynthos , locally called Vatheia , is a coastal town and a former municipality in Euboea, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Eretria, of which it is a municipal unit. Its 2001 population was 4,141 for the town and 7,356 for the municipal unit...

, Euboea
Euboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...

. Within Maroussi lies the biggest forest in urban Athens, "Dassos Syngrou", and the rest of the area is residential, with commercial buildings to be found mainly on Kifissias Avenue.

Historical population

Year Population
1981 48,151
1991 64,092
2001 69,470

Modern Maroussi

Maroussi, a quiet northern suburb of Athens, was strictly a family housing area until the 1980s. During the 1990s and due to the development of excellent transportation substructure, (namely the Attiki Odos
Attiki Odos
Attiki Odos is a privately owned toll motorway in Greece. The Proastiakos high-speed suburban rail is set almost entirely in the median of the motorway, along its main section. The motorway's numbers are 6 for the main section, 64 for the Hymettus Beltway and 65 for the Aigaleo Beltway...

, Athens Metro
Athens Metro
The Athens Metro is an underground rapid transit system serving Athens, the capital city of Greece. It was constructed and owned by Attiko Metro S.A. and operated until 2011 by Attiko Metro Etaireia Leitourgias S.A....

, Urban Rail), the availability of land, and a public authority friendly to businesses it has been transformed into what is now known as the Financial District of Athens. At the turn of the new century the area now houses increasing areas of modern low-rise office buildings serving the Greek corporate elite, as well as many a number of facilities and infrastructural developments. The city remains a highly regarded domestic suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...

 in all areas, apart from the commercial Kifissias avenue.
It offers a colourful range of activity to residents and visitors and a very comprehensive and modern variety of facilities, cafes, restaurants, multiplexes, sporting venues, shopping areas
The Mall Athens
The Mall Athens is a major shopping mall in Athens, Greece. It was the first of the kind to be constructed in Greece and one of the largest shopping and leisure centres in Southeastern Europe....

, as well as a number of prestigious public (Peiramatiko Lyceum Anavryton) and private educational institutions. Maroussi also has a longstanding and strong athletic tradition, traceable to the first modern Olympics of 1896, and home to one of the dominant basketball teams in the Greek League
A1 Ethniki
The Greek Basket League , commonly referred to as the Greek Basketball League or Greek Basketball Championship, is the highest professional basketball league in Greece. It is run by HEBA...

 (Maroussi BC
Maroussi BC
Maroussi Athens B.C. , is a Greek professional basketball club that is based in Maroussi, a northern suburb of Athens, Greece. The club's full name is Gymnastikos Syllogos Amarousiou. The club competes in the Greek League. Its long-time owner was Armodios Vovos of the BVIC construction firm...

), holder of the European Saporta Cup
Saporta Cup
Saporta Cup was the name of the second-tier level European professional club basketball competition, where the National Cup winners from all over Europe played against each other. The competition was organized by FIBA Europe...

 trophy in 2001. In 2004, Maroussi was considered co-organizer of the Olympic Games Municipality together with Metropolitan Athens, because the majority of the facilities and venues were located in the "Kalogreza region", and other areas of Maroussi, mainly at the Athens Olympic Sports Complex
Athens Olympic Sports Complex
The Olympic Athletic Center of Athens "Spiros Louis" or OACA , is a sport facilities complex located at Marousi, northeast Athens, Greece...

.

Transport

Marousi is road serviced by OASA (blue colour) buses and also runs its own small bus shuttle network (red colour).
As for rail, Maroussi is serviced by ISAP
ISAP
I.S.A.P. is the acronym for the Athens-Piraeus Electric Railways , the oldest urban rapid transit system of Athens metropolitan area in Greece. It is the second-oldest underground metro system in the world, after the Metropolitan Railway, of 1863, now a part of the London Underground...

 (green colour, line 1) with 4 train stations, KAT, Maroussi, Neratziotissa, Eirinis, and by Proastiakos
Proastiakos
Proastiakós , is the name used for the suburban services of TrainOSE, servicing Greece's three largest cities: Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras; providing them with modern commuter rail links, towards their suburbs and also towards other cities and towns located around them.The service, operated by...

 (yellow color, suburban light railway) with 2 train stations, Neratziotissa and Kifissias.
The "Maroussi" and "Eirinis" ISAP stations are elevated above the ground.
The OASA buses and the ISAP line are both accessible with the same 1.00 EUR ticket as of April 2009, whilst the local red buses network is entirely free to anyone, and as such offers limited zero-fare transport.

If the Line 4 (orange colour) of the Attiko Metro is built, Marousi will also be serviced by underground rapid transit.

Twin cities

Marousi is twinned with the following cities: Faenza
Faenza
Faenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...

, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

 Lakatamia, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...


Notable people

  • Spiridon Louis
    Spiridon Louis
    Spyridon Louis was a Greek water-carrier who won the first modern-day Olympic marathon at the 1896 Summer Olympics, thereby becoming a national hero....

     (1873–1940), a Greek
    Greeks
    The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

     shepherd who won the first modern-day Marathon
    Marathon, Greece
    Marathon is a town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians. The tumulus or burial mound for the 192 Athenian dead that was erected near the battlefield remains a feature of the coastal plain...

     at the 1896 Summer Olympics
    1896 Summer Olympics
    The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era...

    , thereby becoming a national hero
  • Prince Michael of Greece
    Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark
    Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark, is the author of several historical novels and biographies, as well as a contributing writer to Architectural Digest.-Birth and family:...

     (1938–), also known as Michel de Grece, son of Prince Christopher of Greece and grandson of King George I of the Hellenes. Prince Michael lived in Maroussi from his marriage to Marina Karella in 1965, since late 70's.
  • Aimilia Tsoulfa, Golden Medalist in Sailing, Athens Olympic Games 2004
  • Aliki Vougiouklaki
    Aliki Vougiouklaki
    Aliki Vougiouklaki was a Greek actress. She is considered as one of the most popular and successful actresses of Greek cinema.-Biography:...

     (1934–1996), movie star and singer who appeared in 42 movies, mostly musicals
  • Vicky Kaya
    Vicky Kaya
    Vicky Kaya born July 4, 1978, is a Greek model, television presenter and occasional actress who has appeared on the covers of numerous international fashion magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, Madame Figaro, Marie Claire, and Elle.She is currently hosting the Greek equivalent of America's Next Top...

     (1978-), fashion model and actress
  • Labis Livieratos
    Labis Livieratos
    Haralambos Livieratos who was born in Athens on April 3 19??, is a Greek singer.-Early life and career:In 1987 Lambis graduated from the dramatic school of G. Theodosiadis. His first theatrical performance was during the winter of 1988 in a play called Xenodohio O Paradisos...

    , singer

External links

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