Yiannis Charalambidis was born in 1901 in the village Takhtagra in the Russian-controlled Kars region, today part of Turkey. His father had moved to Kars from Pontus in 1887. The family abandoned Takhtagra in 1918 when the Russians ceded Kars to the Ottoman Empire. They subsequently settled in the Veria region of northern Greece.
In 1930, musicologist Melpo Merlier (née Logotheti) embarked on a project to record music from people native to Pontus who had arrived in Greece from the former Ottoman Empire during the 1920's. Charalampidis was chosen to perform a number of traditional songs from the region of Kars. Merlie recorded him singing and playing kemenche at the Alumbra Theatre in Athens in 1930.
The recordings were released in Turkey under the title Pontus Şarkıları: 1930 Ses Kayıtları by Kalan Muzik and in Greece under the title Τα Τραγούδια του Πόντου. Listen to some of the recordings here.
References: Μουσικό Λαογραφικό Αρχείο, Μέλπως Μερλιέ
Photo: pontianlyrics.gr