Ageliki Pampoukidou

Angeliki Pampoukidou was born in Minden, Germany, but grew up in Thessaloniki, in the welcoming neighborhoods of Kato Toumba. Her special fondness for Greek tradition developed through visits to her ancestral villages, Korifi in Kilkis (where her refugee grandparents from Cheriana of Pontus settled in 1923) and Xinoneri in Karditsa. She studied Philology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, specializing in Linguistics, and speaks three foreign languages. Since 1996, she has worked in private education, and since 2011, she has been working in public secondary education as a substitute teacher. In 1992, she wrote and directed the play "Here Greece," and in 1995, she wrote the ethnographic comedy "The Marriage" in the Pontic dialect, a work she staged with the Pontian Students Association of Thessaloniki, of which she was a member and head of the theater department. Since 2003, she has also been active in songwriting, particularly in Pontic discography, with notable works including the albums "As s' ouranou to krenin" and "Metaxozygiston." She is married to musician Thodoris Kotidis, who has been devoted to the Pontic muse for the past 25 years with his lyre and performances. Together, they have three daughters and a son and have been living in Meteora, Thessaloniki, in recent years.