Founders Story
Alexandros
THE VISIONARY - CO·FOUNDER
The man who started Eutopia not out of ambition, but out of return.
He is not an artist. He is a host. And that is, perhaps, the most honest title for someone who has given Kavala to hundreds of people before they left with something they didn't expect.
XANTHI, 2007
He built the first gallery with stones he collected himself
In Xanthi, in 2007, Alexandros found a plot in the old town and built a building with stones he had collected from a demolished tobacco warehouse. Upstairs, his interior design office. Downstairs, his first gallery.
That's how a double life began — the man who builds spaces, and the man who fills them with art.
Five years later, he had a heart attack.
Double bypass. Two years of silence.
When he returned, he didn't return as he was.
The return
The gallery he opened after wasn't looking for the established
The Balkan Art Gallery didn't seek established names with sales potential. It sought young artists. It sought energy. It sought the conversation between people who had just begun to find their voice.
"Money doesn't interest me," he says today — and he says it the way someone does who has stood on the line between before and after a heart that stopped.
From Gallery to Residency
What was supposed to be an Airbnb became something else entirely
In 2022, after the pandemic, Alexandros transformed an inheritance of Ersi's in Kavala into what was supposed to be an Airbnb. His real intention was different — it was just easier to say it that way.
Three months he worked on the first website alone, with YouTube tutorials and Google Translate, without English, without any previous digital experience. He booked twenty artists in the first year.
Since then: thirty the next year. Sixty the third. Seventy-five booked for 2026. Five different programs. Five different places. One philosophy.
It's a way to leave a beautiful imprint —
on the hospitality of artists.
Not "to discover new talent." Not "to build a brand." A beautiful imprint. On people. On places. On times. That is the phrase Alexandros uses when someone asks him to define what Eutopia is.
— Alexandros Lazaridis, Founder
The Ethical Imprint
A purpose without an ethical dimension is not worth pursuing
For Alexandros, Eutopia is not a business vehicle. It is an ethical one. In every conversation he returns to the same idea: that a goal without a moral dimension is not worth pursuing, and that money is a result, not a motive.
That is the phrase he uses when someone asks him to define his work. Not "to discover new talent." Not "to build a brand." A beautiful imprint. On people. On places. On times.
From a tobacco warehouse
to a Mediterranean network
Built a building in Xanthi's old town with stones collected from a demolished tobacco warehouse. Interior design office upstairs, first gallery downstairs. A double life began — the man who builds spaces, and the man who fills them with art.
Heart attack. Double bypass. Two years of silence. Everything that came after was shaped by the experience of a heart that stopped — what mattered, what didn't, and what kind of work was worth doing.
A gallery that sought young artists, energy, and the conversation between people just beginning to find their voice. Not established names with sales potential. The beginning of a philosophy.
Transformed Ersi's family property in Kavala. Built the first website alone — YouTube tutorials, Google Translate, no English, no previous digital experience. Twenty artists booked in the first year.
Sixty artists. The Meteora ceramics program launched. The Monastery residency established in Peloponnese. The network begins to take real shape across multiple Greek landscapes.
Seventy-five artists booked. Kavala, Meteora, Monastery, Evros, and Athens. Five places, one philosophy. The network Alexandros imagined while building alone with a laptop and a dream.
Ersi completes
what Alexandros begins
Without Alexandros, there would be no idea. Without Ersi, there would be no place where the idea can happen.
Read Ersi's Story ↗