AP PHOTOS: In Greece's shut factories, lost jobs and wealth
By Associated Press
Dec 10, 2015 5:08 AM CST
In this photo taken on Tuesday, May 19, 2015, the husk of a airplane lies on the tarmac of the abandoned former Athens International Airport, which shut down in 2001. The property, along with idling installations built for the Athens 2004 Olympics, is Greece's most valuable piece of real estate whose...   (Associated Press)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Since it almost went broke in 2010, Greece has suffered horrific job losses, soaring long-term unemployment, across-the-board income cuts and over-taxation, despite a constant deterioration in state-provided health, education and welfare services.

The country is now dotted with the hulks of formerly flourishing factories that for decades churned out wealth for their owners and provided a sure if modest livelihood for multitudes of workers. While many predate the country's financial crisis, the past five years have accelerated the pace of de-industrialization.

Beyond the derelict factories with their cracked concrete platforms and smashed windows, there's the old Athens airport complex, abandoned since 2001, and former farmland in the southern Peloponnese region.

Some of the plants are guarded by former staff, others padlocked or open to anyone prepared to dirty a pair of trousers. Inside are the relics of their former activity: Piles of wine bottles, stacks of crockery, idle machinery. Scattered among them are the imprints of the people who worked there — rotting boots and gloves, personnel files, dust-infused jackets left hanging on nails and never reclaimed.

Here's a gallery of photos by Associated Press staff photographer Petros Giannakouris showing some of Greece's abandoned places.

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