Turkey's Nasreddin Hodja enthralls Greek audiences

Turkey's Nasreddin Hodja -- a unique and entertaining character from Turkish folklore -- has found a new home in an unlikely setting: Greece.
       
At a special storytelling event in Athens recently, stories of the Hodja -- a kind of a mixture of fool and wise man -- were read out by husband and wife team Panagiotis Kokkoris and Turkey-born Gözde Atalay-Kokkoris.        
The duo share their Turkish and Greek heritage to bring Nasreddin Hodja to new audiences and delve into the shared language, stories and traditions which stretch from Anatolia into the Balkans.  
     
Gözde and Panagiotis's combined narration of folk tales in both Turkish and Greek captivated the audience at the Gallery Dimiourgon in Athens.        

Gözde, a theater actress, studied at Istanbul University and in London. When she met her future husband at a performance project in northern Greece it marked the beginning of a unique cultural partnership.        
The two of them got married and together they spread their passion for art performance and their love for their two countries through folk story telling.        

"I feel like home when I'm in Greece," Gözde told Anadolu Agency. "I never felt I'm a foreigner here. I am almost a year and half here and I never felt different, I feel like I'm home."  
     
Kokkoris has the same feelings for Turkey: "You know, when I first visited Turkey, people when they heard I'm Greek called me friend, komşu [neighbor in Turkish] and bacanak [brother-in-law].        

"Then they would invite me to sit down and drink our tea; it was incredible for me what I felt."      
  
"Greeks and Turks are so similar and when I am in Turkey I feel like home," Kokkoris added.  
     
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