Anastasia was missing for almost 40 years until she was found by a blind man

Anastasia's family thought she'd been killed when she disappeared from the area of Trabzon in modern-day Turkiye. Almost 40 years later, a blind man reunited them.

(Left to right) Nikolaos and Eirini Kokkinidis, Litsa Athanasiadis, Varvara and Eleni Kokkinidis with relatives.

When Litsa Athanasiadis, from Melbourne, tells the story of her ancestor, Anastasia Kokkinidis, one could be forgiven for thinking it was a fairy tale.

Anastasia was born and raised in the area of Trapezounta, modern day Trabzoncin in Turkiye on the Black Sea, according to Athanasiadis.

In the late 1910s, the Kokkinidis family migrated to Russia in order to escape the persecution and massacres of the 'Young Turks'.

Based on the accounts of her grandmother, Eirini, and mother, Varvara, Athanasiadis said her great aunt had "disappeared" during a Young Turk attack and was presumed dead.

Varvara Kallidopoulou, Anastasia's niece and Litsa Athanasiadis's mother.

"(The family) tried to find her, they asked everywhere, they appealed to the Red Cross but they could not locate her," Athanasiadis said.

Escape to Russia

The Kokkinidis family, like thousands of others, fled to Russia and found themselves in the Novorossiysk region where they lived until 1939 when Nikolaos Kokkinidis was exiled to Siberia during the Stalinist persecution of ethnic minorities in the former Soviet Union.

"Grandpa Nikolaos was never seen again," Athanasiadis said.

"Then, grandmother Eirini took her five children and went to Greece."

The family became refugees for the second time, settling in Agios Dimitrios, a village in Kozani, where they spent the difficult years of World War II and the civil war that followed.

Over the years, Eirini talked about her sister Anastasia and how she was lost in the years before the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the great uprooting of Hellenism.

The loss of loved ones is a common thread in refugee narratives.

Litsa Athanasiadis (centre) with members of the dance crew of the Pontiac Home Melbourne.

At that time, most transportation was still by animals or on foot.

In the countryside, travelling salesmen were the main source of everyday items.

Among these men who traversed long distances was the person responsible for reuniting Anastasia with her sister Eirini.

What is remarkable is that this person was blind, according to Athanasiadis.

"One day, a man who was going from one village to another told my grandmother Eirini that her sister 'Lemona' lives in a nearby village in Grevena," Athanasiadis said.

"Eirini tried to explain to the blind man that she did not have a sister named 'Lemona', but he insisted."

She then wrote down the names of her parents and other information only her sister would know for him and waited.

Nikolaos Kokkinidis (left) with relatives. Credit: Supplied by L.Athanasiadis

Months passed before a strange woman appeared in Eirini's front yard.

The woman spoke to Varvara in the Pontic dialect starting with the traditional greeting of familiarity 'my soul', Athanasiadi said.

She then asked Varvara if she knew Eirini and Varvara called her mother. That was the moment the two sisters, Eirini and Anastasia, were reunited after almost 40 years.

Αs it turned out, they had been living just 60km apart for 18 years.

How Anastasia became 'Lemona'

After being separated from her family, Anastasia ended up in Greece and was married at 13. As a result, her last name was changed.

Her identity was altered even further when her husband changed her Christian name.

"Anastasia's husband had lost his first wife whom he adored," Athanasiadis said.

"When he got married to Anastasia, he started calling her (by his first wife's name) 'Lemona' and that name stuck."

Anastasia had lost everything but her memories. Within a short time, she found herself with no parents, no siblings, no home, no village and no name. She ceased to be Anastasia and accepted life as 'Lemona'.

With the name changes, her parents had no chance of tracking her down.

It took a blind, wandering man who listened to the stories of suffering of the people in the villages he travelled aound to make the connection.

Part of the family history

Her story became part of Kokkinidis family folklore, brought to Australia by her niece Varvara Kallidopoulou in 1966 when she migrated to Melbourne with her husband and daughter Litsa.

Athanasiadis, a proud Pontian with years of community activism, was instrumental in creating a memorial in honour of Major George Devine Treloar, the Australian who saved thousands of Greek refugees during World War I and up to the Asia Minor Catastrophe.

The monument dedicated to Major George Devine Treloar, the Australian who saved thousands of Greek refugees.

The monument is located in Ballarat, Treloar's birth place.

"Next to Treloar (monument) is (the statue of) a little girl, a refugee, sitting on a bundle of clothes and holding a cup. I called her 'Lemona' because this is how Lemona must have arrived in Greece," Athanasiades said.

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