Markos Vamvakaris was born on May 10, 1905 in the settlement of Skali in Ano Chora of Syros to a Catholic family (for this reason he later acquired the nickname "Frangos").
In 1920, at the age of 15, he left Syros and went to Piraeus, where he was later followed by his family. There he engaged in various professions, such as dock worker (loader and unloader, coal worker in the so-called "coal mines") and from about 1925 to 1935 as a skinner in the municipal slaughterhouses of Piraeus and Athens.At 18 he had his first marriage. He married Eleni Mavroudi, "Ziggoala" as he called her.
At that time, according to his autobiography, he accidentally heard Nikos Aivaliotis playing the bouzouki, a fact that overwhelmed him and changed his life. So he started learning the bouzouki and writing his first songs. |
