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A Branch of Nomikos Family

The island Santorini (Thira), is one of the Cycladic Islands. Santorinians from around the middle of the 18th Century got involved into the Hellenic Merchant Marine development. According to the Naval (Maritime) Museum Santorini, from 1774, after the end of the Russian - Turkish war, it became possible for the Greek ships to raise the Russian Flag to penetrate to South Russia and Ukraine. Thus the Greeks little by little established their Maritime position, trading mostly the surplus agriculture products (wine, wheat, cotton) and investing in Shipping Company's and Transportation Trade. These activities were profitable and the profits were multiplied as the Greeks took the risk by carrying mostly wheat. In a very short time the Greek Merchants and Seamen had made a fortune.

After the Greek Revolution of Independence (1821) the only vital section of the economy in Greece was that of the Mercantile Marine and when the wheat trade dominated the markets the Greeks had the monopoly in South Russia and the Black Sea. Around the year 1850 the island of Thira shows an increase in commercial activity far more that the rest of the islands. It trades directly with Russia. Almost the total wine production is being exported there. From Russia they are loading cereals, part of which was discharged on the island and the rest are being transported by the Thiran Merchants towards France, Italy and England."

One of the families largely involved in maritime activities from the first half of the 19th century until our days was Nomikos family.

In the 20th century after the World War II there appeared some new names among greek ship owners that became worldwide known - Aristoteles Onassis(1906 - 1975) and Stavros Niarchos (1909 - 1996), who both married the daughters of Stavros Livanos (the "patriarch" of the greek ship owners of the interwar period), and Iannis Latsis (1910 - 2003). Iannis Latsis began his career before the World War II as a sailor on a ship of Loukas Nomikos, who at that time was one of the most known ship owners. In 1945 he bought his first ship on credit from the son of Loukas Nomikos, Markos, who had become his friend.

The descendants of these Greek shipping magnates of the 20th century now are branching out into numerous other economic sectors. But some descendadants of the Nomikos family are still continuing the traditional family maritime business for at least seven generations.

Even in a Nomikos family with two daughters and no sons one of the daughters, Kadio Segala-Nomikos, being a captain's wife, thanks to her own efforts succeeded to build up a whole fleet. The story is described in the book "I Pano Meria tou Kosmou" written by her granddaughter Kadio Kolymba and based on the grandmother's diary.

The economic independence of santorinians resulting from the mecrchant marine activities is reflected in the old bourgeois mansions which still survive in the villages of Santorini or in other places, like the neoclassical Nomikos' house in Taganrog (third quarter of the 19th century). Because of its cultural value it is a listed building under protection of the Russian state.

It looks like there were at least two branches of the Nomikos family in Russia. Kadio Segala-Nomikos in her diary was mentioning the names of Kolia Nomikos and his son Iannis Nomikos, who owned a factory in Tagantog. I also had an ancestor Iannis Nomikos in Taganrog, but he should have been at least half-century older than this Iannis Nomikos. Kadio Segala-Nomikos was mentioning also other relatives in Taganrog without references to their names.

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