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Anastasia Balezdrova 

Eight months after their rescue operation that followed the 69-days stay almost 700 m under the ground the 33 Chilean miners and their families arrived in Greece at the invitation of the Greek mining company ELMIN.

The men of the day, whose suffering touched millions of people worldwide and made them follow the rescue operation with bated breath, saw the exhibits in the museum of the Acropolis and were definitely flattered by the huge media interest.

On the terrace from which the visitors have a view of the Parthenon Louis Urzua unfolded the flag of his motherland and they all together shouted the already familiar slogan "Chile, Chile, the miners of Chile."

Somewhat embarrassed at first but then with more confidence the miners told of how they felt in their peculiar "prison", but also of their faith that they would be taken out from there.

The youngest miner Jimmy Sanchez said he will never forget the 70-day stay underground. "The emotions were very strong. The feeling of horror I felt was the strongest." He said that not for a moment he did lose his faith in God that he will come out from the mine alive. His wife Dzhubitsa was not among the families that have experienced the deadly waiting until they see their relatives living among them. She met him later and then she realized that he is one of the 33 buried miners.

Currently, the 20-year-old Jimmy is unemployed but when he returns in Chile he will continue to work in the mines. Asked if he is afraid that the same could happen to him he said that the incident has already passed and he is not afraid to come down to a depth of hundreds of meters again.

When the entrance of the gold and copper mine near Copiapo calved, Esteban Rojas was on its bottom. "At first, I thought it would end quickly, that we will go up after a day or two. When I realized that the things will not happen that way I felt very bad." The miners have supported each other during those 70 days particularly long for them, but they spent hours praying too.

Unlike his younger colleague Jimmy Esteban does not intend to return to the mines. "I am planning to find some other work first and then I will retire."

Esteban is the miner who vowed during their ordeal underground that he will marry his wife in church, although they have been married for 25 years. He proposed her in a letter which he sent to the ground through the passage that was made for the buried workers to get vital supplies.

The 9-month Esperantsa Elizabeth, the daughter of the miner Ariel Ticona, who was born while her father was still 700 m under the ground, is in Greece together with her parents.
 
During the luncheon given in honour of the miners the CEO of ELMIN Liberis Polihronopoulos said that the company’s employees had the idea to invite them to visit Greece long before the rescue operation. "Then, we wrote the letter that had to reach the buried miners in Chile. It expressed our hope that the things will end well, that we will think about them until the end of this ordeal and will be glad, when it is over, to welcome our brothers – the miners from Chile – to Greece."

The Minister of Culture Pavlos Geroulanos welcomed the miners and their families. "In the days when you were buried in the mine we thought of you as our compatriots, and when we saw you getting out alive, we realized the importance of not losing our faith."

"We are having a wonderful time in Greece now," said the representative of miners Louis Urzua and gave photo albums from Chile with the signatures of the 33 miners and a flag, similar to that they unfurled when going out of the rescue capsule, to the Minister, the CEO of ELMIN and the businessman Giannis Vardinogiannis.

Earlier, the miners met with the Greek President Karolos Papoulias, and tomorrow the will stay in Chania on Crete to rest for several days.