Minas Kiprios - the most successful Kytherian you probably have not heard of

Amalia Samios
Jul 2
3 min read

Updated: Jul 3

Minas Kiprios (Kipriadis) was born at 1 a.m. on June 3, 1845, in Karavas, and was baptized on June 8, 1845, in the same town. He was the eldest of the 11 children of Theodoros Kipros and Maria Kornoneo (Patrikio).

Photo courtesy of The Migration of Kytherians to Egypt and Alexandria by Koula Kasimati book, page 299

He completed his primary education in 1857.

In March 1861, he was included in the passport of his uncle, Kosma Belos of Ioannis, for travel to Athens, Greece. He traveled to Piraeus to seek opportunities, initially working as an itinerant bookseller and undertaking various small jobs. His aspiration to migrate led him to Egypt, making him the first individual from Kythera to do so.

At the age of 18, he led a caravan in the Sahara Desert, searching for gold-bearing sand and engaging in the trade of ivory and ostrich feathers. During this journey, he was buried under a pile of sand and lost contact with the caravan. Fortunately, an animal, likely a dog, detected his scent and helped free him. The animal then followed the caravan's scent, allowing Minas to rejoin them and continue the expedition.

He traded elephant tusks, ostriches, and apples with local inhabitants in exchange for jewelry, colored beads, combs, mirrors, and other items.

In 1868, he relocated to Abyssinia, where he engaged in trade and hunting. On one occasion, while returning with goods valued at £20,000, he was found in the desert, desperately thirsty and willing to trade his entire cargo for a carafe of water.

Subsequently, he settled in Sudan, where he became involved in large-scale cotton cultivation and invited three of his brothers and three cousins to join him.

Upon leaving Kythera, he possessed only a primary school education. However, he later became proficient in speaking, reading, and writing French, English, and Arabic.

With the experience and wealth he amassed, he eventually settled in Alexandria, Here he established a commercial and banking enterprise, quickly becoming one of Egypt's leading cotton merchants. He would pre-purchase a significant portion of Egypt's cotton and sell it on the Stock Exchange.

His banking and cotton ventures generated an annual turnover of several million pounds.

Minas married and Margetta MARKOPOULOU 1880 and they had two sons and three daughters.

During the 1882 Arabi Pasha revolution, mobs destroyed and looted foreign properties, including Minas's cotton warehouses, which were set on fire and destroyed.

In the following years, he attempted to rebuild his fortune but was unsuccessful. He managed to salvage only a fraction of his assets from Sudan, dissolved his Egyptian businesses, and returned to Greece in 1891.

Before leaving Egypt, he entrusted £20,000 to friends to purchase properties near Omonia Square on his behalf. Instead, they acquired a large vacant plot at the intersection of Patisa and Galatsi, where the Kipriadou District now stands.

In Athens, he founded the Phoebos candle factory in Nea Faliro and an undershirt glue factory. He also established a soap factory and collaborated in founding the Sfakianaki refrigerators. Additionally, he invested significantly in the Klonaridos beer project. Most of these ventures failed, resulting in financial losses.

He was an intelligent individual, naturally inclined towards mathematics, and studied physical chemistry and astronomy. He invented a machine for the automatic navigation and guidance of ships, collaborating with German engineers.

With the assistance of a French engineer, he completed experiments on his machine in 1905. Prince George expressed interest and provided a ship for successful trials.

His invention earned him a silver medal at the international exhibition in Bordeaux, awarded by the maritime federation of France.

An American company showed interest in purchasing the machine for $30,000, but Minas declined, seeking $50,000 instead.

During this period, he was also involved in the manufacture of guns and cannons and pursued mining enterprises.

His next venture was founding the Lifeguard Society of Poseidon with funds amounting to 2,000,000 drachmae. The objective was to salvage wrecks of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet that sank in the port of Pylos during the naval battle of Navarino, believed to contain 200,000 gold francs. He assumed leadership of the recovery in May 1907 and organized it with a more scientific approach. At the age of 70, he personally descended to the port's bottom to assess the ship's condition. The Balkan War, Turkish War, and World War I halted these efforts.

He succumbed to the Spanish flu in 1919 at the age of 74 in Athens, Greece.