LOCALS STROLLER

Locals Serial

BY C.K.

November 21, 2024

Stroller is a Greek crew that has been hitting the crusty spots of Athens for a few years now. They already have a few edits to their name, including the notable MERAKI, released in March 2023, which featured both great skating and a lot of hijinxs This latter point really appealed to us, taking us back several years to when skateboarding was taken a bit less seriously. But, as you know, ‘Skateboarding has changed!’ for better or worse. It all depends on your perspective.

Anyway, we were curious to learn more about them. So we gave them a camera to document their lives, and then we did an interview with Elvis, their spokesperson.

Can you introduce yourself please?

I am Elvis Allarai, I am a skateboarder/filmmaker and stress head for Stroller, a brand I run with my best friends.

When did you start skateboarding and how did you get into filming?

I started skating when I was 12 years old with two of my friends Menios and Joner. We were living in a small village outside of Athens, back then. There were only the three of us skating so at some point we quit because I moved to another village and we were seeing each other only at school and through video games. Fortunately ,we started skating again some years after the gaming period was over. That was around 15 years old by the time that I could go to this other city “Chalkida” that had the closest skatepark but still hated the road to the train station fucking hitchhiking didn’t work.

For filming, I got into it a bit later because I always loved skate videos.

So I first bought a DSLR camera after working construction in London for a summer “ big ups to my uncle there !’’.Before that, in high school I wanted to live in Athens so much that I got into studying and somehow I managed to pass the national exams that got me into the University of Athens. But I unofficially dropped out after a year. I couldn’t do it anymore. Computer science is crazy man ! at least it made my parents happy for a bit and helped me build our website. After moving to Athens I started doing whatever/random filming jobs to pay the bills. Of course, instead of studying I was really getting into skating and hanging out with the other boys that got into the crew later. We already knew each other from before but once I got into the city ,the village/city boy connection became tighter haha. Later on, after filming some videos with the shitty DSLR I decided to buy a Panasonic but I’m still stuck with a crappy fisheye.

Elvis and Alex ‘Sxalispa’ Paschalis with some cute dogs that happened to be passing by. They took the opportunity to pee on the spot.

Why did you choose the name Stroller ?

When we were back in the village, every time we were skating around and got kicked out by older people “only old heads there” so they pretty much didn’t know what to call a skateboard so they were calling it “karótsia” shouting “Go away with your karótsia”. It means a cart or something. When we were making these stupid phone edits that we needed a name for I thought about “karótsia”. Translated from Greek to English and it came out as “Stroller” .

Do you have a little word about each of them ? (A replacer)

Oh I’m going to try to be nice on this one because, it’s a lot of shit talking going on between us.

So as seen in the MERAKI video

Sxalispa is the one who has the last part. He is skating fully and also does the graphics. He used to be treated as the young and immature of the squad but somehow the coin flipped the other side and now I could say he’s more mature than all of us. Still the youngest though.

Tsaga, the guy that has the first part. This guy is a maniac. He is working out, skating, spot searching and talking about skateboarding all the time . In fact he even has an alarm set every day so he can wake up early and skate more.

On the other side, Menios, is the complete opposite. He disappears for months then he comes on a trip or back to the city for a bit, he doesn’t care that much. But when he skates, he is fully on it. If you catch him on tape at the right moment you can get some clips. Otherwise, I’m afraid he is not gonna try more than 5 tries for you.

Joner is more of a hard worker but he gets in trouble with security, police, he is like a magnet on attracting crazy people. He has a court because we were skating at a spot in Thessaloniki during Covid times. The cops came to kick us out because someone from around there reported that we were ruining the marble “on a spot that people skate since 90s”whatever.Long story short Joner got picked by the police officer with some other guys from “Laikon” straight into prison for a night. Now he must keep a low profile for five months otherwise he can get serious problems.

Improper, the one who has the second last part. I love his style. He contributed a lot building the “Asylum Galatsi D.I.Y” skatepark and is also a skate instructor for a nonprofit organization which is helping refugees and kids to skate in Greece. It’s called “Free Movement”.

Dakis the second part guy haha. He is a jazz guitar player. He is kind of the creative director of the group. He is fully into music and arts. He views skating as that too. We live in the same apartment now so long debates are going on between me and him almost every day ,everyone else is over it because we look like we are fighting all the time. Maybe we do , but it’s all love(hate) in the end.

Billy, is a hell of a guy too. He just got two clips in the video but you don’t need more it’s like a rare gem . Now he is studying something like multimedia and computer science no one will ever know exactly. He is doing a bunch of stuff. Like he always says “There’s a lot going on bro” the chief of brainstorming hands down !

How is to skate in skate Athens?

The city is great to skate. We don’t have a skatepark in the center though. It’s almost an hour away with the traffic and all that. No local good plazas either but there are a lot of good spots mostly crusty but that’s life.
For some reason now Athens has dragged the attention of lots of people from all over the world. I guess everyone is looking for new places because they’re tired of skating in the same cities. Not to brag about it but I think Greece it’s the choice if you want something fresh, good times and amazing food.

What is your local spot ?

We go to Kotzias Square a lot lately. It’s in the center of Athens ,there is a lot of flat ground and sticky ledges we trynna fix . It’s cool to warm up there because it’s close to our place and near to another spot we go to ,called Gotham. It’s a really famous spot here the one with the white banks maybe you’ve seen on videos ,now they are skate-stopped and some of the ledges are fucked up .But it’s fun ,an “event” pops up every Sunday organized by some OG skateboarders.

Nikolas ‘Dakis’ Konstadakis and John Mavraggelos ‘Joner’ enjoying some cheap beers.

Is it right that every time the city is building something, when they start digging, there is always antiques or some shits like that ?

Yeah Athens has a huge history as you know, there are too many ancient things under the ground. When they find something, they stop the construction to get them out and put them in a safe place or whatever.I don’t know I’m not an archeologist but if someone’s reading this send us some ancient stuff we want some inspo for graphics. Lately they are building a new metro line in and a new station in our neighborhood. We are pretty curious about this new metro line, we hope some new spots are gonna pop up but as locals everyone is very worried because it will surely increase the price of the estate. Next to where I’m living in “Exarchia” back in the day it was an area where lots of anarchists were living and there were no rules somehow like Christiania in Copenhagen but more messy. Now it’s way more chill but some people are protesting, fighting and even throwing Molotov cocktails still at the police sometimes ,now that this metro station is in the works cops all over that place ,I hate that.

What are the other cities for skating besides Athens?

There is Thessaloniki, the second biggest city. Notis Aggelis comes from that place. He is the G.O.A.T . Him and George Patias have this brand called “Screw Loose”. Favorite local brand for sure! shoutout “Laikon” and Mike Hristov as well.

What was the project behind the MERAKI video ?

Mostly filmed during the Covid, we were gathering at my place almost every day, in my thirty square meters appartement/30m2. Do you imagine eight people sleeping in that place sometimes ? It was crazy. No one had a job, we were filming every day, came back home and watched the clips. It took us two years. I loved the making of it but now that I rewatched the video it’s kinda whatever hahaha. It’s part of the process I guess. I have to say that I’m really hyped on the new one that is coming out though.

In full discussion with the President of Athens.

Are there other crews that/which inspire you ?

Of course I watch almost everything that comes out but I really enjoy fewer. I mean the skating has gotten too far, and I love watching mind blowing tricks. However I love it more when it’s combined with a video that has good creative aspects of it like filming/editing ,spots and most important showing the good energy between your friends. If something it’s fake you can smell it .So as for what I get inspired from there are many. Of course I grew up with watching Baker 3 and Antihero mostly but , for later of my era I fuck with Limosine,GX1000, Palace,Dime,Bronze56k,Strobeck videos, John Wilson vids and maybe some more if I think about it.

There is a moment in the video MERAKI, when there is a member of the crew holds a pole jam with his belt and his pants fall off

Ahaha that’s outside of my university, we were having free food as always from the student restaurant. As we came out ,we were fucking around on the way going home and Nikolas “Dakis” was like oh “who can quickly ollie the gap and take this pole jam ?” and Alex “Sxalispa” was like ”No way it’s too tight” and Alex “Tsaga” was like “what do you mean?! I am doing it first try bro” So Sxalispa held the pole jam with his belt cause the pole was falling and it turned out like that.

Filming for the new STROLLER video near the hills in the center of Athens.

Did you organize a premier for your video in a skate shop ?

We did on the older ones but for The MERAKI premiere it was in a theater room of a hybrid space. It was the best and the worst at the same time. Every event we do gets always wrong like our interview you can tell hahaha- the network was very bad and Elvis called me with 4 different phones-. I was editing the video so I didn’t have much time to organize the premiere and all that shit so I missioned Nikolas”Dakis”. The building manager asked him how many people do we expect, he said 150 and she suggested the small room that could fit 100 people and if there is more then we could do another projection. Nikolas booked the small room. We went there to test everything some hours before the screening. I wouldn’t think there would be many people because Athens’ skate scene is not the biggest. The day of the premiere at first screening time, we were like fuck no one is coming and after we came out of the room, the battle begun. Everyone came after basically , classic Greek mentality to never be on time. The building manager was there swearing at us ”what the fuck is happening, why you invited so many people !?” There were like 400 people all over the building, in the stairs because you have to go upstairs, go through a restaurant and then go into the projection room. We blocked the restaurant and she was so mad, she was shouting and swearing at people “you are stupid, I am going to cancel this, get the fuck out of here” but you know the people didn’t give a shit and they all started screaming too. We tried to calm down everybody and begged to stop making noise otherwise there wouldn’t be another screening. They listened to us, stayed quiet, made a line for screenings and everything was fine at the end. At least for us , but surely not for the building manager’s heart condition and the people eating at the restaurant.

What advice would you give to a crew who want to film and organize a premier and everything ?

Keep good people around you and finish the projects you have in your mind.

What are your next projects ?

We have a video that will be released soon + something I don’t want to spoil yet. Keep an eye on our website strollercrew.com we are coming in with some new products.