(Excerpt from the book ‘The Greek community in Tanzania’)
The construction of the railway in the German colony of Tanganyika (pr. Tanzania) commenced in the late 19th century. However, due to the shortage of sufficient labour, the landscape difficulties and the outbreak of sleeping illness, the railway could not be implemented. For that reason, in 1905, the Germans assigned the project to Greeks contractors and technicians. Most of those Greeks were familiar with such works, since they had worked either on the Baghdad railway or in the railroad construction in the horn of Africa. Some of them were Stamatis Emmanuel, Alexander Skoutaris, Dimitris Kapetsakos, George Arnaoutoglou, Dimitris Gikas, George Giannikos, Michael Kazamias, Lazaros Horn, Kleanthis Papadopoulos, Kostas Panagiotou, Manolis Sarmanis, Manolis Mantheakis, Dimitris Tsakiris, Tasos Vasardanis and Fotis Kontopoulos.
