[Excerpt from the book ‘The Greek community in Tunisia 16th-21st cen’]
In the mid-19th century, the Greeks controlled much of
the trade between Tunisia and the eastern Mediterranean. In the period
1835-1859, one of the biggest merchants of Tunis was Stamatellos Maltezopoulos,
who every year, with his family, went with his sailboat to Gargalianoi and
returned with a load of gifts for the bey and his ministers. George Siganakis
and Apostolos Varinopoulos had the exclusive trade of tobacco, importing
tobacco from Central Asia and the Balkans. Another wealthy merchant was Gregory
Poulos, from Filiatra. He used to import grapes from the Peloponnese but mainly
exploiting the vineyards of Soukra, Marsa and Ras-Djebel. He produced syrup,
what the Arabs called sboula, which he bottled and sold. Therefore, together
with other compatriots, he was involved in the trade of Turkish delights and
mastic. Finally Theodoros Tsetses, George Kougioutopoulos, Dimitris Kouvopoulos
and Vasilis Kougiteas were engaged in the trade of salt and tobacco.
