Three Alexandrian Mansions, Finney , Rolo, Salvago 3/ Salvago
Three Alexandrian Mansions Finney, Rollo, Salvago Photos and text © by Ioannis Kallianiotis, unless otherwise stated These family mansions are still in place, as so many other old buildings in Alexandria. Their difference with the rest, is their maintenance and the new life given to them by their actual owners. It is not self-evident. The key to their survival was their buyers' projects. The National Bank of Alexandria (Bank el Ahly al Iskandariah) for the Finneys, the Goethe Institut for the Rolos, and the former Soviet Embassy as a Russian Cultural Center for the Salvagos. The city's long economic immobility has been a double-edged sword. Many of the country houses and mansions in their legendary gardens in the Alexandrian suburbs, Roushdy, Lauran, Schutz, Bulkley were not as lucky. Reconstruction ruined the majority of them. Those family names connected with the specific three mansions are Alexandrian legends. Their wealth was mythical. In the same time these families...