...is the name of the village I live in. It's my father's village, and one of the most picturesque places I have seen. My grandparents were both refugees from Ponto, or Asia Minor, and during the mass Greek exodus from the west coast of Turkey, in the early 1900's, they travelled to find new lives in Greece, their homeland- a story I will come back to. The actual village was formerly a "Turkish Village", and its residents actually all came here at about the same time. The cultural diversity here is one thing that makes it an interesting place to live, as each person's roots lie in a different part of the land. Here are some of the places they came from -
Popovo - a region near the town of Paramythia about 40 km away.
Ithaki - an Aegean island off the coast of Turkey.
Asia Minor - Greek territory on the west coast of Turkey
Northern Epirus
Shepherds from Central and Northern Greece
Over the last twenty years we have seen this community change, with people joining, not only from other parts of Greece, but from other parts of the world, becoming what I like to call a "global" village. Germans, British, Italians, French, Americans have become a part of this community, leaving their mark but also leaving a distinct lack of unity.
But anyway, it's really a beautiful place, which words cannot really describe, but I will write more about the beauty another time...
