As clichéd as it may sound, I cannot resist the temptation to state the obvious: The City is beautiful, Pera is beautiful. The burden they carry is heavy and immense. Every corner has a story, every alley has its own secret. For centuries, paeans have been written, are being written, and will continue to be written about the beauty of the City, its nobility and grandeur, its history... What can one add when people of all nationalities and all arts have painted, sung, and written about every inch of it, each adding their own piece to the mosaic that constitutes it? However, if we must condense all this and wish to give a mark that encompasses everything, we will end up in Pera. Without wanting to diminish the beauty and value of any other area, I believe that the heart of the City beat and continues to beat in Pera. A short journey, from within, into the history of the most famous urban area of the City, multicultural Pera, which was decisively marked by the Greek Orthodox community. Through a narrative based on personal experiences, schools, consulates, and mansions are described, as well as the cinema, theater, and press, along with the people—bourgeois, intellectuals, or picturesque—who gave life and color to the area. Starting from the first settlement of Pera in the 16th century to the present day, the rise and fall of a cosmopolitan society unfold, alongside the transformation of the area's appearance. The edition is complemented by photographic material. In the pristine places of childhood and the yearned-for geography of adolescence, many unexpected miracles occur. Io gracefully unfolds the childhood and school album of the lively young girl from the City and guides us through the mystique of her diamond memory, making us participants in a recently past social life that still retained many of the peculiar elements of the cosmopolitan osmosis of the famous Euro-Levantine Pera. From the prologue by Thomas Korovinis