Chapter 8

8.   1982–1984

 

Winter 1982 (Uppsala)

I left the United States behind and returned to my research. I finished all the courses and only the thesis was left. It was supposed to be written in English and I was worried that Barbara would not help me with the language, after the US trip. But Barbara volunteered again, even though she had her own courses and research, and I am of course very grateful for that. Her help has probably shortened my writing by a few months!

We were very good friends, even though the trip to the US had affected our relationship negatively. I knew that Barbara loved Sweden and I was sad when she behaved so American when we were in the United States. She explained to me that she did not want to be critical of her own country in front of her friends, just like most Americans do. I bought her explanation, although I did not do the same when I met my old friends in Greece. I always used to lift Sweden to the skies and almost mocked the Greek politicians and bureaucrats in front of my friends. And my friends shared my opinions and were happy that even I, who lived in Sweden, could criticize everything bad in Greece.

I used to go to Barbara's corridor, almost every day. She lived at the top floor and you had a nice view from there. In addition, there were nicer students who lived there and a teacher, Sten, who was a doctor of theoretical logic. Sten was one of the sharpest minds I have met during my time in Uppsala. Often, we had good discussions in the kitchen until 2-3 in the morning, when everyone else was asleep. He received his doctorate at Stanford in the US and moved to Uppsala where he got a research assistantship and taught, among other things, mathematical logic. He was just like a typical philosopher; he forgot unimportant things such as when he had cooked his own dinner. And if the food could not be eaten afterwards, he would eat yogurt or ice cream with Greek olives!

During the winter, Ingemar Bergman's film "Fanny and Alexander" was recorded in Uppsala. The film is about the siblings Fanny and Alexander from the wealthy Ekdahl family in Uppsala in the early 1900s. And for it to be so close to reality in Uppsala at the beginning of the last century, a lot had to be changed around the Cathedral in Uppsala. The lighting, as well as the traffic and parking signs were removed. All cars were forced to move from the streets and replaced by horses with carriages. The square below the cathedral was filled with horse feed and the museum by the Fyrisån river was converted into a home. Of course, there were many roadblocks, but from a distance you could follow both Bergman, who directed all the actors, and Sven Nykvist, who took the photographs. I used to stand there in the cold with many Uppsala residents and admired these masters. It was the first time I saw a film shoot. But it was not just any shoot, it was two of the world's greatest who directed and photographed. And during the breaks we got to walk so close to Bergman and Nykvist and it felt a little nervous. And then I thought that these two had appeared in the two Swedish films I saw in Athens several years earlier.

Every day I used to go to the library and look for interesting research papers and books for my dissertation. Some books that you could not borrow at home you must read on site. There was lots of literature about the Swedish innovations that I was going to check. I used to write down all the important information that could be used in the dissertation and eventually I started to structure my thoughts. Sometimes I got hooked on interesting historical events by, for example, Alfred Nobel, JP Johannson (wrench), Jonas Wennström (ASEA), LM Ericsson, Sven Wingquist (SKF), or Ivar Kreuger (Swedish match). Although these inventions would not be extensively analyzed in the dissertation, I was happy to spend several days working through them. I wanted to learn fully about these amazing individuals and how they thought when developing their inventions and businesses.

The more I searched for suitable literature, the more books I found about other interesting inventors and innovators, such as de Laval (Cream separator), Delén (Gas accumulator), Ljungström (Steam turbine), von Platen / Munters (Electric refrigerator), Rausing (Tetra Pak) and others. There was a risk that the purpose of my dissertation would be changed to a historical account of Swedish inventions and innovations. In that case, it would be more suitable and presented to the Department of Economic History in Uppsala and not to the Department of Economics. Both Villy Bergström and Ragnar Bentzel would certainly stop me, even though they both had a very high respect for the Swedish economic history.

I decided to no longer spend so much time on all the Swedish inventors I found, and instead evaluate their importance for Swedish economic development. On the other hand, it was not good to waste all the time I spent going through these inventions either. It was therefore necessary to include the most important inventions in my analysis.

If you write a dissertation, you feel a little freer compared to when you take courses. The actual content, the analysis, the method, the structure, the writing, and the continued financing are of course always in your head and cannot be loosened up. I had just received a scholarship from the Swedish Institute until the summer. But would I be able to get more funding if I did not show any success with, say, an essay? It was therefore important to start writing and I did. I started by writing a literature review about innovations that was completed during the summer. It was a good start and opened several doors to concentrate on.

While I was working on my dissertation, my life also changed. I was no longer alone, isolated, and unsociable. Barbara was the most social person in the department and loved to spend time with people. Her open and positive behavior probably changed my own. I started hanging out with even more Swedes at the department; most of them were doctoral students at my age. We often went to V-Dala pub in the evenings and we discussed everything between heaven and earth, but mainly economic policy in Sweden. Many were sharp and brilliant with their analyses. There I learned how a rational and well-read Swede argues and that they dare to say that "I don't know" if they did not know. For a Greek, it was an excellent course in listening and arguing and I wished that many compatriots had experienced this to hopefully change their way of debating with others. That my friends were excellent has been confirmed a few years later as some have become prominent professors while others have been given various high positions in society.

Spring 1982 (Uppsala)

During the spring, many people from the department travelled to the Modern Museum in Stockholm to see Mark Chagall's exhibition. As usual, it was Barbara together with some secretaries who had arranged the daytrip. Neither I nor the head of department Christian Nilsson were really interested, but we kept up, even though it was a Saturday and we were going to miss the English football on the TV. During the trip it was "business as usual", i.e. some football talk between me and Christian. We sat a little apart so as not to disturb the ladies who talked about culture.

There were a lot of people and a long queue outside the museum. In addition, it was very cold. When we came in, we started walking around the paintings and while the ladies stood for a long time in front of each painting, Christian and I walked past quite quickly. Suddenly we came to an eccentric painting depicting two people flying. I turned to Christian and commented like, "it looks like the goalkeepers save a penalty in the crossbar". Christian, a big fan of Manchester United, smiled and said "in that case it must be United's goalkeepers". And we continued with our football language inside the museum. Behind us stood two elegant older ladies who thought it was indecent and anti-cultural to liken Chagall's paintings to football goalkeepers.

It was really embarrassing. Christian apologized and we went straight to the cafeteria instead. When the company asked us afterwards what we thought of the exhibition, Christian thought it was quite interesting and I said that I liked the goalkeepers in the air! To be honest, I do not understand anything about modern art. But I love the art of the Renaissance, as well as the classical Greek statues in white marble.

It was no problem to renew the residence permit in April. It was enough with a certificate of my continued studies and that I had received a scholarship from the Swedish Institute.

Summer 1982 (Stockholm)

During the summer, Barbara and I moved to Stockholm. We found a furnished apartment at Tippen, near Solsidan, at a very low rent and we lived there for six months. Barbara was once again going to work at KF in Slussen and the location suited her perfectly. But I had not gotten a summer job and hoped to find something. At the same time, I thought I would be able to get by with the small savings I had from the Swedish Institute's scholarship. And of course, I hoped that Bentzel would help with a new scholarship after the summer.

Unfortunately, I miscalculated and the accommodation in Stockholm with all the trips was significantly more expensive than I thought. After a month or so, my savings ran out. One afternoon when I was going home with the blue line from Slussen, I met several Greek guys who were going to practice football in Fisksätra. They asked if I was interested in playing with the team and of course I was! Their football team Ikaros played in division six in Stockholm. At the same time, I told them that I had no money and asked if they knew of any work during the summer. Some of them worked as cleaners at the coach's cleaning company and if I got off in Fisksätra I would be able to talk to him.

I did and I met the coach on the pitch. He was happy that I could play football and offered me a couple of hours of work a day, for six weeks. I would work either very early in the morning or late at night, in four offices in luxurious Östermalm. Neither the pay nor the working conditions were good, but enough to support me a couple of months. A doctoral student as a cleaner, I thought with sadness, but I accepted it. I was not alone. I had heard various stories where engineers and doctors worked as cleaners, or buss-drivers.

One of the offices I cleaned was the Zenith Group. It did not feel quite right when I dusted off some offices of a couple of young economists, probably with lower qualifications than I had. But it was just as well that I did not meet them, because the office had to be cleaned and ready before they came to work.

Thankfully, many offices were closed and clean, as many were on holiday. Even the toilet was relatively easy to clean. It was lucky that we did not have so much training during the summer and no games to play, so I could stay at home on the weekends. Such a day of rest remains in my memory. It was when the young tennis star Mats Wilander won the final of the French Open over the big favorite Guillermo Vilas. In August, the football games started again after the summer break and a couple of weeks later I quit my summer job.

Autumn 1982 (Stockholm)

Barbara continued her work for a few more months, while I spent most of my time reading and writing and playing a few more games with the team. Once a week I went to Uppsala for a higher seminar. At the beginning of September, the happy news came that I had received a nine-month scholarship from Handelsbanken.

One day I rode in the same subway car as Professor Erik Lundberg, one of the greatest economists in Sweden. He lived in Saltsjöbaden and he was on his way to Uppsala to give a lecture to us. He was happy when I greeted him and introduced myself. He remembered my long last name because Bentzel had told him that I was going to research the Swedish innovations. He thought it was among the most exciting topics in economics.

We also took the same train to Uppsala and he told me some unknown stories about Andreas Papandreou, who had just become the Prime Minister of Greece. He liked Papandreou as an economist and hoped that he would also be a good prime minister. The title of the seminar that he was to hold in Uppsala was "Thatcherism, Reaganomics and Papandreou".

When Papandreou was arrested by the military dictatorship in Athens in 1967, a couple of other professors were involved in his release. Papandreou's American wife first contacted the prominent professor Franco Modigliani, who knew Papandreou during his time at American universities, who in turn contacted Erik and asked him if Stockholm University could offer Papandreou a visiting professorship. When the American government was also involved, everything was finally arranged and Papandreou then moved with his family to Stockholm.

Erik told me that Papandreou did not take care of his duties at the university, but he understood him when he organized the resistance movement against the dictatorship instead. Villy also told me that when Papandreou had a seminar in Uppsala in 1968, four armed guards also came into the conference room. Bentzel, who was leading the seminar, was really frightened and asked them to leave the room, otherwise he would call the police!

Erik also told another funny story. In the early 1970s, proffesors Lindbeck, Bentzel and he met with the legendary Minister of Finance, Gunnar Sträng, and asked for a salary increase for university teachers. Sträng was really surprised that the professors of economics demanded it, when they knew that the economy did not allow it. Benztel then replied that it was their wives who demanded it. Sträng became even more serious and replied that it was bad if the economics professors could not explain to their own wives that they cannot ask for high salary increases!

In October, we moved to the student housing Domus, at the Royal Institute of Technology. This suited me perfectly because I was close to the Swedish Patent Office where I was going to collect patent statistics for my doctoral thesis. 

My routines changed completely. Early in the morning I went to the Patent Office's archives and library. I sat there until it closed, together with many engineers or patent lawyers.  Since I was there every day, many people asked me if I had patented anything and investigated whether there was a similar patent. After a couple of weeks, everyone knew that I was collecting patent statistics, both applications and grants, to analyze it. I do not think I need to tell you how difficult it was to manually search across all patents, even if they were carefully categorized. When the Director-General Sten Niklasson found out what I was doing, I got help from some employees and facilitated the search process.

I remember wanting to analyze SKF's patents from the beginning until 1982 and had collected at least 1000 granted patents with a similar title, a short summary and often a sketch. It felt wonderful because I finally had a chance to investigate this ingenious product that had fascinated me as a child when I played with the scooters. There I found Sven Wingquist's first patent sketch consisting of two rings and double rows of balls. The inside of the outer ring had a spherical shape, which facilitated the inner ring to move freely.

Afterwards, I contacted some professors at Chalmers Institute of Technology if it was possible for them to decide which of all these SKF patents I had collected were the most important, and write an article together. I had intended to relate their importance to the company's development. There were so many with the same heading type "device for ball bearings, roller bearings" and it was impossible for me to judge their quality. Two did not answer and the third who responded wrote that it was impossible to rank them. Unfortunately, these data have not been used in the thesis. It turned out to just a working essay and nothing more.

Winter - Autumn 1983 (Stockholm)

My older brother Nikos came to Sweden during the winter. Several years earlier, he had suffered from muscle atrophy, was unemployed, uninsured, and living with our parents. He was treated with cortisone and got a little better, but not well enough. He wanted to come to Sweden to be examined by specialists who could help him.

My cousin Dimitris, who had a doctorate in biochemistry and worked at Huddinge University Hospital, had booked an appointment. We went there, he was thoroughly examined and they took some samples. Of course, the doctor's visit cost a lot of money, which I paid. A few days later, they replied that they could not find the cause of the disease. He would continue with cortisone and they promised that he would be recovered but it would take time.

I thought that Nikos would soon go back to Greece and often asked him when he was going to do so. Then he told me that he planned to stay a few more months and maybe work a little. On the flight to Sweden, he met a Greek who lived in Sweden and suggested him to stay and work. The man told him that if he managed to stay a few years in Sweden and work a little, he would be able to get partial pension, especially when he suffered from muscle atrophy.

And the man also told a true story where a Greek teacher received a disability pension even though he had only worked in Sweden for three years. He was going out with his Greek-class one day and met a car that was driving fast at a road junction. One student was hit by a car and slightly injured. But the teacher screamed and acted out a little theater, as if he was in a serious shock, when the ambulance and police arrived. He exploited this event to the point of absurdity and finally got a disability pension! That was the absurdity of Sweden those days and even my sick brother could get a disability pension, the man thought.

When I heard that, I got angry and there was a heated discussion with Nikos. Would my own brother take advantage of my Sweden? Never in life! I made it clear to him that he could stay a few more weeks if he wanted, as a kind of vacation. He did not have a work permit to work and his health did not allow him to clean, which was a typical black job without language skills. Of course, it was immoral for me if he worked illegally, and without taxed income you do not get a pension. I think he began to understand me and after a few weeks he left Sweden. Presumably, the cold, the darkness, the lack of friends and acquaintances, and the Swedish food had played a big part in his decision.

In mid-June 1983, I participated in my first international conference at Umeå University, where I presented an article based on my ongoing dissertation. It felt exciting and big to present in front of many participants, and it went quite well.

I had never been so close to the Arctic Circle before. On the last day of the conference, we got to experience a midnight concert with classical music. Listening to Mozart's "Eine kleine nachtmusik" in the bright midnight, out on the lawn, was a real experience. When the concert was over, the sun had just risen. The next day I was supposed to fly to Bromma, late in the evening. And throughout the flight, I admired the wonderful nature and when we flew over Stockholm, it was magical. The sun was faintly visible on the horizon and in the water all the beautiful buildings and trees were reflected.

During the autumn term of 1983 I finally received an educational grant from the university that would last until the dissertation. I would not have to work during the summer to get by. I continued to collect data at the Swedish Patent Office and went to Uppsala one day a week. The dissertation work proceeded as planned.

My teacher in econometrics from the Athens School of Business and Economics, Epameinondas (abbreviated Nondas), contacted me and wanted to come to Uppsala to present his doctoral thesis. Nondas had a master's degree in mathematical statistics and worked there. But to keep his position and become a lecturer, he needed a doctorate. I then contacted both Villy and Bentzel and both decided that he was welcome to Uppsala. Villy appreciated his econometrics knowledge and wrote a few articles with him. Nondas also helped me with the modern causality method that was just developed, which I used in my thesis.

Winter 1984 (Stockholm)

At the beginning of the spring term of 1984, in January, I became an assistant to the Microeconomics Lecturer. It was my first university course I was going to teach. I was to take care of the group exercises where I had to solve some tasks for the students, among other things. I had two groups, one between 8.15-10 and one between 13.15-15. To start the course at 8.15 when I lived in Stockholm, I had to take the 7 train, at the latest. It takes about 45 minutes to the station in Uppsala and then about 20 minutes’ walk to the university.

Unfortunately, I had a bit of bad luck with the weather the first day I went. It had showed a lot the day before and the train was about 15 minutes late. When we arrived in Uppsala it was several degrees cold and the bus I was going to take, had just left. I could not afford to take a taxi and decided to go fast. But walking quickly in severe cold affects the respiratory tract. I did not notice it until I entered the class, at 8.20. The whole class was waiting for me. Everything I had planned to say, like introduce myself, explain what we are going to do etc., did not really get through. I breathed fast just as if I had run some distance race, still had my thick jacket on and everyone started laughing. I got my lesson and promised that I would never again risk my teaching from possible train delays. In the future, I took the 6.30 train from Stockholm instead.

Of course, it was difficult and expensive to travel from Stockholm. I did not really need to live there anymore. At the same time, there were often fights with Barbara. She worked part-time at KF, every Friday she went to Systembolaget (Public monopoly selling alcohol) and she invited her friends to our apartment to drink and listen to music. I was often in the other room trying to study. Sometimes they would come to the room and offer me some wine so I could relax and spend time with them. I did it reluctantly and it was embarrassing. Barbara then thought that it might be better if I moved back to Uppsala because my studies were more important to me than my social life. And so, it was. I moved to Uppsala while she moved to a smaller dorm room in Gärdet. But, we agreed to continue to be good friends.

The cold of this winter and my Greek way of speaking quickly to keep up with all the exercises, affected my vocal cords and just as the course ended, I was banned from speaking by a doctor at Akademiska Hospital in Uppsala. It hurt badly but after a couple of weeks it got better. Then I got a several-month treatment in the phoniatric clinic. I practiced my breathing with a lot of sounds a couple of times a week, just like an opera singer. At the end I got some videotapes that I played at home and practiced myself. 

Spring - Winter 1984 (Uppsala)

I moved to Hans' apartment, a good friend and colleague who had moved to the United States to take some PhD courses. The apartment was very close to the university and life in Uppsala became a little nicer. We were a bunch of doctoral students who were working on our dissertations and hung out almost every evening at the V-dala pub or at someone’s homes. And when we were at the pub, I had no chance against them when it came to the number of beers. At best, I managed two beers, while Bengt, Thomas, Gudmundur or Anders managed at least twice that.

Over Christmas, my parents came to visit me. My good friend Kristoffer drove me to Arlanda to pick them up. It was still light, but cold and a lot of snow when the plane landed. But both liked the vast forest along the motorway E4 and the quiet traffic.  

When we arrived at the apartment, my mother was very happy. She immediately felt the warmth. She was worried that she would freeze in Sweden and before they left, she had asked me if I had enough duvets. But when she felt the heat, she said that she would be able to spend the winter in the apartment, even though it was so dark and cold outside. She hated the uninsulated and damp apartment in Athens.

My father, on the other hand, liked the cold and the snow. He was born up in the mountains and used to walk to school a few miles in the snow and cold when he was a child, he said. And later, during World War II, he was an officer and fought against the Italians in the cold mountain range of Pindos. We used to leave the mother often in the apartment and walked around Uppsala.

One day we walked to the Cathedral and Carolina Rediviva and down towards the center. While we were walking on the sidewalk, my father suddenly stopped, looked up and down a few times, shook his head, and was confused. I was a little scared and thought he was having a stroke. Then he turned to me and asked why it is so dry and warm on the pavement and the roadway and so much snow and ice on the grass. He noticed that the snowflakes were wiped away when they reached the ground.

When I explained to him that they had heating spirals all over the hill, he did not believe me. But after a while, he understood that I was telling the truth. He then realized that Sweden must be an incredibly rich country that could afford to heat even its sidewalks! He then thought that his mother should also be able to go there instead of sitting at home. The heating spirals gave him such an impression and he told all his friends in Greece about it.

On Christmas Eve we were invited to Nikos and Barbro and we arrived on time. It was a very nice event with good food and discussion until late in the evening. Then we took the train to Uppsala and taxi home. The father wanted to walk, but since it was several degrees below zero, we accepted the mother's firm suggestion that she refused to walk in the dark and cold.