Tag: People

"When I go fishing, pelicans are also fishing close to my boat. Once, I heard a strange noise and turned my head to see a peculiar image. A pelican was trying to swallow a fish, but it was big and the half of it was still hanging out of its beak. The tail looked about a foot long, so I deducted that it was a big fish. I jumped into the water, waded through the mud, grabbed the bird and pulled the fish out of its mouth. It was too much for the pelican, he couldn't swallow it. And I had needs... A couple of hours later, I sold the fish in the village and earned 3.500 drachmas. It was a good amount of money back then".

"In the morning, we collect  oregano, wood and other materials to process in the workshop. Then someone plays the flute in the forest and we close our eyes and walk along a path between two ropes following its sound".

"I used to be naive and romantic. I thought that through music I would be able to share the pain and the joy with my friends, but I was disappointed. Some people use music as a weapon and they fight amongst themselves. We don’t want any part of this. We close our eyes and sing, not looking at the cameras when they turn towards us".

“Unfortunately my father’s name was Giannis and not Vardinogiannis (a Greek tycoon), that's why I live up here in the wilderness. I have four children, but none of them chose the cattle farmers profession, because the money we make selling one kilo of milk is not even enough for a small bottle of water. It’s not only that merchants sell the milk four times its original value, they also take the butter out of it and the only thing left is the water”.

"I used to think I would never stop playing football. Even as a player for Panathinaikos I used to play in the streets every morning and in the championship court in the evenings. My mind used to get more tired than my feet did. I had to be skilful, pass to Antoniadis, and avoid the strikes. When I returned home after the match I had to be left alone for about an hour, so that my mind could get some rest".

“The old stories, the ones about past glories and Emperor Constantine Paleologos, we’ve heard them all being narrated in conferences in Greece and we’ve understood them well. The issue is what we are going to do from now on in order not to become extinct. The Greeks of Constantinople who permanently returned to Greece ask us why we haven’t left too. We don’t like this question. Did we ever ask them why they left? We justified them, we understood them, we felt their pain, but let us not be judged in the end”.

Into the deep fir forest of Maenalus, which looks like a jungle, there's the small village called Elati. One of the ten residents left in the village, is Leonidas Zafeiropoulos, the man who has raised a flag portraying Theodoros Kolokotronis at the entrance of his shop.

"I was born the year the Turks invaded Cyprus. It was all black back then. I grew up in my father's grocery store on Imvros, among spices, dried red peppers and okras threaded on small ropes. I kept my Greek nationality". Musician Stelios Berberis came to Greece in order to study economics and learn traditional music under Domna Samiou. When he finished his studies he came back to Constantinople.

"We're talking about poverty here. Do you think that horses don't eat much? How am I supposed to feed them? Each one of them eats a tone of barley per year, not to mention the hay. Three thousand euros isn't enough for me to buy a horse, plus five hundred for the saddle and the leads. The cheapest chainsaw reached the price of a thousand euros. All these years, I only have a tyrannical life to remember, and nothing else".

"As a young man I worked at a traditional woodcarving laboratory in Athens with a good salary of 20,000 drachmas per week, but I stayed there less than a year, because they didn't care much about the details. I got a job at another lab for 6,000 per week, where they didn't like mindless working. I preferred earning less money and learning more about the job. Today's young people make something and want to immediately make money out of it; they don't care about learning by other people's experience".

"Some time ago I was introduced to a 70year-old woman. When she held my hand she said: What is this ring that you're wearing? I like it very much. Would you wear a ring like that? I asked her. Definitely yes, she answered. Old women usually wear brilliants and golden jewels, but she had a strong personality and was attracted by the titanium ring".

If you stop to ask for directions formation when passing through a village of Amari, you will definitely be invited to drink a glass of "raki" (local strong alcoholic drink). Georgis Sarris, from Kouroutes village, is a blacksmith. His shop is on the public road and when a traveler stops to ask him something, Georgis always insists of treating him to something from the nearby coffeehouse. The café owner has placed a bench on the sidewalk, where the blacksmith and his friends sit and gaze at the tops of Ida mountain, which is there, right in front of them.

“My school is not here, it’s in another village called Kato Meria. It’s 3-seated and has 19 children. We have three teachers, Mrs. Effie, Mrs. Zapheiroula and Mrs. Dionysia, the headmistress. My village has no other children except for me and my sister, whom I can’t stand because she’s really young and keeps screaming”.

"The priest in my village, Plikati of Ioannina, used to paint icons. I made a Virgin Mary with his help, which I later showed to my hagiography teacher Nikos Stratoulis, in Athens. When he saw it he asked me: What do you want to be, a painter or a hagiographer? I was confused; I didn't know what to answer. What if he didn’t like my answer and told me to take a hike? I told him that I wanted to become a hagiographer in order to please him. He looked at me with a satisfied look and told me: Come again on Monday and wear some old trousers, so you don’t get dirty on the scaffold. Who knows where I would be now, if I had told him I want to be a painter".

His Albanian name is Ali, but the Greeks call him Alexis. He comes from Librazhd of Albania and has been living in Greece for 18 years, most of which at the estuary of the Aliakmonas river, where he grazes sheep. He works in the heart of a biotope under conditions of absolute wilderness and solitude, away from people but close to birds and other wildlife.

"I asked which the most southern place in Europe is and they told me about south Crete. I was looking for a nice place to live, where it would be warm and sunny all year. I was dreaming of a home away from the city, which would be near a natural spring and surrounded by trees. The first house I found had no electricity, only a fireplace in the corner. I had to light a fire every morning in order to make a coffee, but later I bought a camping gaz from the village's store".

Kyriakos Litinas is a priest at Saint Paraskevi's church in Amari, a province of Rethymnon. He is very likable among his fellow villagers and a family man, who struggles as much as his people to make do. The village residents are few and it is hard to say if they can even fill a small church. Calliope Kanakakis has been the village chanter for many years. This role is usually assigned to a man with a deep voice, but there was nobody, so Calliope took over.

At the small square's café of the village Agiannis (Saint Ioannis) in Amari of Rethymnon we met Zacharias Dandoulakis, a pensioner, who used to shelter Antonis Brilakis, the unforgettable left party's fighter, during the dictatorship. Even though their political beliefs were totally different, he was hiding him for 17 months and he finally helped him to escape by plane and go abroad, with a different name and passport.

" 'Why are you crying father,' my children once asked me when we had gone to Athens. 'It's not that is crying, it's my eyes because of the dust and the gas', I answered. I stayed in the hospital for 40 days and I couldn't even drink water. I don't like water from tanks and in nylon bottles. I couldn't wait; I wanted to go home beside the river as soon as possible. When I first came to live here I was bothered by the sound of water, but then I got used to it. My grandchildren don't like it here because they feel lonely. They don't even ask how the watermill works. They only care about the dogs; they are constantly gathering bones to feed them".

“The spruce we burned in the fireplace gave out sparks. That's why we carpeted our wintry room with “saismata” (thick cloths made of goat fur) -they don't catch fire if a spark falls on them. The grandparents slept on a high mattress in the corner of the room and on low mattresses on the floor next to them were the beds of the grandchildren. The married couple would sleep in the bedroom with the baby. When it grew up it moved to the winter room, so that the next baby would take its place next to its parents”.