Tobacco Factories

Samos’s tobacco factories are a significant chapter in the island’s industrial and social history, linked to the transition from an agrarian to an urban economy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Tobacco cultivation flourished after the vineyards were destroyed by phylloxera in the late 19th century, leading to the establishment of the first workshops and factories processing and producing tobacco products. A pioneer was Alexandros Paschalis, who in 1900 founded in Vathy the first tobacco factory on Samos, famous for La Verite cigarettes exported internationally. Also significant was M.C. Carathanasis & Co, producing Oriental‑type cigarettes with exports even to China and a branch in the United States. The rise of the tobacco industry fostered the formation of a new urban class of merchants and artisans, while also leading to the organization of the first workers’ unions, such as the “Union of Cigar‑makers Omonia” in 1903. The remaining buildings of the old tobacco factories, scattered in Karlovasi and Vathy, still bear witness to an era of flourishing, outward‑looking enterprise and artisanal creativity that marked Samos’s modern history.