The Central Service of the National Tobacco Organisation was located in Athens and had four regional offices: in Kavala, Volos, Agrinio and Thessaloniki. The Kavala EOK had its own warehouses at 4 Palaiologou St on a plot that it purchased from the Swedish Tobacco Monopoly. It was built in 1957-1958 (first wing) and 1960-1962 (second wing).
The National Tobacco Organisation was established to protect the Greek tobacco trade, tobacco producers in particular. Its role was to intervene: it collected and processed the tobacco, particularly of old harvests, which the tobacco merchants had not utilised, in order to help the tobacco producers. Furthermore, it evaluated the tobaccos and set the lowest possible sale price, the so-called intervention price.
The five-floor industrial building is comprised of two wings. The Organisation’s offices were housed on the ground floor, where agronomists, administrative staff and skilled tobacco workers were also employed. On the first floor were the storage areas, where they stored the parcels and merchandise. On the second floor was the apartment of the director, who lived there with his family. The humidifiers and pressing machines operated on the third floor, while on the fourth floor there were two tobacco-processing rooms. Finally, on the fifth floor could be found the lockers, baths and dining room of the male and female tobacco workers.
Since 2003, after the closure of EOK, the ground floor of the building has housed the Kavala Tobacco Museum and some public services.
