THE FIRST PART OF THE DUOLOGY RUST AND GOLD
Pure gold that, by accident – but perhaps by design – has a bit of rust mixed in. The red of the rust gave it sweetness, the illusion of sin. And so, as nothing is pure, neither color nor joy, nor sorrow, we have all dripped a bit of rust into our lives. Rust and gold are everything.
Psara and the sacrifice of those trapped in the Genoese Castle. The Venetian Negreponte, Chalkida with its "mad waters," which is now Greek. Piraeus as a rising port and commercial center. Athens, under the shadow of the Parthenon, capital of the kingdom.
In these places and amidst the fire of events during the tumultuous 19th century, the members of the family of Angelis Vambakas, a survivor of the destruction of Psara, will live. His son Antonis, with the help of his half-sister Augoustina, the beloved Miss of the Honors of Amalia, will change the fate of the large family by creating "the best drink in the world."
The Bavarian kings and the chieftains of '21, the Phanariots, the politicians - royalists and dissenters -, the shipowners, the merchants, the workers, and the peasants will become the philosopher's stone in this family epic, turning everything into gold, to give birth to an equally precious drink.
Negreponte is the first part of the duology Rust and Gold, in which, alongside the shocking personal story of the Vambakas family, we witness the milestone events of the 19th century that led to the creation of the bourgeois class in Greece. The duology concludes with the volume Porto Leone.
