by Millie Stavidou 

Evros tends to be somewhat off the beaten track for the average visitor to Greece. It is in the northeast of the country, and borders with Turkey and Bulgaria. The people living here count themselves as the descendants of the ancient Thracian people and have a long and proud history.

As with many places, some customs have been lost or changed over time, especially with the relentless march of the modern world and its media. But Evros during the festive season is still a magical place.

In years gone by, a special Christmas meal would have been held in a family group. Known as Ta Ennia Fayia, or the Nine Dishes, this was once a chance for the whole family to get together and celebrate with a full table. These days, although some families in villages scattered through the region do still keep to this, in the town you are more likely to attend such an event hosted at a community centre of some kind. I was invited to Ta Ennia Fayia at the Kappadokiki Estia in Alexandroupolis, a cultural centre.

Evergreen boughs and wreaths decorated the walls, and the long table was covered with a festive cloth. As people came in, many of them brought prepared food from home to place on the table and share with everyone, and there was a hidden meaning to these dishes. Tradition dictates that a particular list of nine ingredients must be included somehow:

one – pie for the wheat, to make it shine
two – honey, so they may carry many things like the bees
three – wine to let them multiply like bunches of grapes
four – saragli, [a syrupy sweet], to make them sweet-natured
five – watermelon to sweeten the year’s produce with many seeds
six – melon for their tongues so they may speak sweet words
seven – apple for the women to make their cheeks red with health
eight – garlic to offer protection from insect bites and the evil eye
nine – onion to give new mothers plenty of milk

These are remembered in the form of a little poem that is chanted at the beginning of the dinner, and there was a lot of good-natured teasing and joking about the forms each ingredient would take and the creativity of the cooks.

Before the meal can start, the Christopsomo, or ‘Christ-bread’ must be broken and offered round. There is a small ceremony, where the eldest member of the gathering places a towel on the head, with the bread on it, and a young child breaks it in half. It is put straight into a basket and offered round. This is the signal that two things can begin: the meal and the dancing. Greek folk dancing can be very energetic, and I was glad that I was prepared. As a visitor, I did not know all the steps, but the local people were happy to see me join in and very welcoming. Nobody minded the odd mis-step.

The Nine Dishes is of course not the only feature of the season. There is a local myth about kalikantzari or goblins that live in the centre of the world, sawing away at the roots of the Tree of the World that supports us all. At Christmas, they are able to visit the world above and they come up to harangue us and cause mischief wherever they go. A broken glass, spilled oil, a burnt loaf: all can be blamed on the kalikantzari. Children often perform little plays telling the tale of the kalikantzari and how people ward them off using sprigs of holy basil until 6th Janary and the Blessing of the Waters when they are sent back underground, to find that in their absence the damage they had done to the Tree has healed itself. These plays are great fun for both the children and the visitors and make a nice counterpoint to the traditional nativity plays that are also performed.

Christmas Eve is the day for carols. Groups of schoolchildren go from door to door with little metal triangles, and occasionally other instruments, playing music and singing. When they knock, they usually ask: “Shall we say them?” There is a local traditional carol that is still very popular, that starts like this:

From a mansion we come,
and to a mansion we go
We will go to our Lord
May he live long
(English translation)

The children may instead choose to sing a modern song – a Greek translation of Jingle Bells or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Whatever they sing, they are rewarded with coins and Christmas sweets for their efforts.

Santa Claus in Greece is known as Ai Vasilis,or St Basil, and he comes at the New Year. In Alexandroupolis, his coming is heralded on New Year’s Eve by a wonderful street pantomime involving two people dressed as a camel, complete with hump, and a third person who wears a strange sheepskin suit that tapers to an almost triangular point above the head. This is the camel driver, and he chases the camel around, mock threatening it with a stick, to great hilarity from the spectators. While this is going on, a group of people dressed in traditional costumes and with traditional instruments put on a display of folk dancing. The camel and companion go around the dancers, sometimes directly in their path, but somehow it all works out and no one falls over. Some years, Ai Vasilis will put in an appearance and march through the town, followed by the camel and driver as he leads them away at the end.

All this takes place in the town centre and is free for everyone to go and watch and join in. Lots of people bring their children, and not only for the show. Barbecues are put out on the central street and the air is full of the smell of meat roasting. It could be chops or sausages, or souvlaki; little wooden skewers with cubes of meat on. Just the thing to warm you in the chilly December air. One thing is definitely clear: Greeks do not worry about providing a vegetarian option.

The festive season is brought to an end on January 6th, with what is known as the Blessing of the Waters. People gather at the local harbor to watch. Prayers are said, and a priest throws a crucifix into the sea as part of the blessing. A group of young men are ready and waiting. Despite the cold, they dive straight into the water to retrieve the crucifix, with honours and blessings going to the lucky one whose hand closes on it first.

Evros is a special place in Greece, and Alexandroupolis is its largest town. As such, people from all over the region have now settled there, bringing their customs with them, meaning that this is a great place to experience Evritika, or traditions of Evros all in one place.

If You Go:

♦ www.visitgreece.gr/en/mainland/alexandroupolis
♦ www.virtualtourist.com/hotels/Europe/Greece/Prefecture_of_Evros/Alexandroupolis-427719/Hotels_and_Accommodations-Alexandroupolis-TG-C-1.html
♦ There are some fascinating museums in Alexandroupolis, such as the Ecclesiastical Museum, not far from the town centre, and the Ethnological Museum, which, among other things, houses some early printed texts in Greek and displays of costumes through the ages.
♦ There are a number of hotels in the town centre, and a lot of places to eat. Seafood restaurants abound on the seafront, and there are also traditional tavernas and other eateries in the town centre, all very easy to find.
♦ In the evening, you can find bars with live music, as well as the quieter kind.

About the author:
Millie Slavidou is a writer and a translator. As well as being a frequent contributor to Jump Mag, she is the author of the InstaExplorer series for pre-teens, which takes young readers on a journey round the world, experiencing local cultures, traditions and languages along the way. jumpbooks.co.uk/category/millie-slavidou

Photo credits:
Thanks to:
♦ alexandroupolisnews.blogspot.gralexandroupolisnews.blogspot.gr – for the new year camel and theofaneia
♦ C. Williams – for the children in traditional costumes getting ready to dance

 

by W. Ruth Kozak

At the corner of Lysikrattis and Vironos Streets in Athens Plaka, stands a choreographic monument awarded to a choir at a Festival for Dionysos in ancient Athens’ Dionysos Theatre. Once, next to this monument, the last of its kind in Athens, was a French Capuchin convent. The poet, George, Lord Byron, stayed here when he was in Athens. At that time, the panels between the columns of the monument had been removed, so Byron used it as his study and wrote part of Childe Harold here in 1810-11. This was once the theatre district of ancient Athens, so it seemed appropriate that the flamboyant poet should choose to spend his time there. In Greek, “Vironos” means “Byron” and this is Byron’s street. I used to live there and spent much of my leisure time at the little milk shop, now a posh coffee shop, at that corner. The convent was destroyed in a fire, but there’s an inscribed monument on the spot where it once stood honouring Byron. His presence always seemed near.

The street adjacent, is Shelley Street, named for his poet colleague Percy Bysshe Shelly who tragically drowned in Italy. Both poets are honoured in Greece, especially Byron, who became a national hero when he joined the Greek resistance movement during the War of Independence.

While in Athens he often lodged with a widow, whose daughter, Theresa Marcri is celebrated in his poem The Maid of Athens. The house where he lived in the district of Psiri at Odhos Pyias Theklas, is marked with a plaque. There are traces of him in various locations. If you visit the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion you will see his name carved in the marble steps. Sunium’s marbled steep, where nothing save the waves and I may hear our mutual murmurs sweep.

I have visited many of the places where Byron lived and can understand how the beauty and serenity of the Greek landscape inspired him. Byron wrote many poems about Greece including the famous “Isles of Greece”

The isle of Greece! The isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace, —
Where Delos rose and Phoebus spring!”

Byron first visited Greece in 1809, landing in the town of Parga. From there he went north to Ioannina where the infamous Ali Pasha held sway. While there he visited the Pasha who had an even shadier reputation with women than the poet. Ali Pasha, like Bryon, also appreciated beautiful young men. He was enchanted by Byron, noting his delicate small ears “the mark of good breeding”. It was during his stay in Ioannina that Byron began his autobiographical narrative poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which commemorated his meeting with Ali Pasha who had lavished hospitality on him. Byron knew though that behind Ali’s deceptively friendly countenance were “deeds that lurk” and “stain him with disgrace”. Athens. While at Ioannina he loved to swim out to a small island in the lake. In spite of being born with a club foot, Byron was a skilled swimmer and once swam across the Hellespont from Troy. To this day they hold swimming meets there to remember him.

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honey’d wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Medeli’s marbles glare:
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.”
– Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Byron traveled the country extensively often visiting the islands. On Lefkada (Levkas) Childe Harold saw the hovering star above Leucadia’s far projecting rock of woe”. This was at the site of ancient Leukadas, a precipitous cliff 200 feet high where there was once a Temple to Apollo. It was here, known today as “Sappho’s Leap” that the lyric poet Sappho tragically committed suicide by jumping off the cliff.

In 1823, apparently bored with his extravagant life in Italy, Byron sailed to Spain and Malta before finally returning to Greece. This voyage is detailed in his poem Sailing with Byron from Genoa to Cephalonia. From Preveza he went north to Parga

He lived for awhile on the island of Kefalonia (Cephalonia) in the tiny village of Metaxata, near Argostoli, where he enjoyed exploring the ruins of a Venetian castle at Ayios Yeoryios, once the Venetian capital of the island.

During his travels around Greece, Byron not only grew to love the country but was also impressed with the moral tolerance of the people. He became involved in the rebellion against the Turks, joining forces with Alexandros Mavrokordatos, the leader of the forces in western Greece to take part in the War of Independence. In spite of Byron’s lack of military training, together they planned to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. The Greek struggle against the ruthless Turks was supported by many intellectuals and poets like Lord Byron who volunteered to fight and become leaders of the revolution. They were known as the Philhellenes (friends of the Greeks). Although many became disillusioned by the pettiness and greed of the Greek klefth leaders others, like Bryon, took up the cause, arriving in Messolonghi , a squalid little port on the Gulf of Corinth, the western outpost of the resistance movement against the Ottomans. He was greeted with a 21 gun salute. In spite of despairing “in this realm of mud and discord” he donated 4000 pounds of his own money to prepare the Greek fleet for sea service and employed a fire master to prepare artillery as well as paying the Souliot soldiers who were reputedly the bravest of the Greek resistance fighters.

On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore:
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks —
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native sword and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells:
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.”

During the spring of 1824, Byron fell ill but continued to carry out his duties. During his recovery he was unfortunately caught in a rainstorm and came down with a violent cold. Unfortunately this was aggravated by the bleeding insisted on by the doctors which may have caused sepsis. He slipped into a coma and died on April 1824 at the age of 37.

The Greeks considered him a hero and buried his heart at Messolonghi where there is now a small museum containing Byron artifacts. He remains were sent to England but refused burial in Westminster Abbey and were instead placed in the vault of his ancestors new Newstead. It wasn’t until 145 years after his death, that a memorial to Byron was placed on the floor of the Abbey.

In Greece, he was still revered, and a beautiful monument to him held in the arms of an angel who stands at the edge of the National Garden in Athens. Each time I’m in Athens I visit it and think of the life and poetic words of this exceptional and intriguing man of literature.

If You Go:

THE MESSOLONGHI BYRON SOCIETY
MESSALONGHI: The house where Byron lived was destroyed in WW II and there is a small memorial garden at the site. There is a small museum devoted to the revolution on central Platia Botsari (Mon-Fir 9 am – 1.20 pm and 4-7 pm. Sat & Sun 9am – 1 pm & 4 -7 pm. There is a small collection of Byronia on the ground floor. In the Kipos Iroon (Garden of Heroes) there is a statue of Byron beside the tomb of Souliot commander Markos Botsaris, erected in 1881.

WEB SITES ABOUT BYRON IN GREECE:
The Greek Revolution of 1821
Lord Byron; The Life of George Noel Gordon – Facts & Information
Greece hails Lord Byron a hero and dedicates a day of celebration in his name

About the author:
Ruth lived on Lord Byron’s street (Odos Vironos) for several years and has traveled to many of the poet’s sites in Greece. She is a travel and historical fiction writer. Her novel SHADOW OF THE LION, about the fall of Alexander the Great’s dynasty, will be published in UK in 2014. www.ruthkozak.com

Photo credits:
Portrait of Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips / Public domain
All other photos by W. Ruth Kozak

 

Athens, Greece

by W. Ruth Kozak

One of my most memorable Christmases was the first Christmas I spent in Athens, Greece in December 1982. It was my first Christmas away from my family and without Santa Claus. Christmas the traditional Greek way was very different than I was used to but I managed to find some decorations and tiny lights, bought a small bay-leaf tree and made myself a Christmas tree.

In the shops around Omonia and Kolonaki Squares there wasn’t a sign of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman or Santa’s Helpers. On the streets the familiar bell-ringers with their red money pots for charity and the sound of recorded Noel carols were missing. Most of the window displays didn’t have festive decorations.

Up on busy Patission Street, the big Minion Dept. store had a mechanical children’s display, a few plastic Santas and some small ornamental trees with tiny coloured lights. There was a big Christmas tree decorated with lights and bright cardboard packages in Syntagma Square. Although some of the main streets were strung with little bulbs, there wasn’t a sign of Christmas tree lights twinkling from apartment windows. And on Christmas Eve, Santa wouldn’t find any stockings hung for him to fill. In Greece, except for those who have adopted the western customs of celebrating the Yule season, the traditions are different.

For most of the western world Christmas is the central festival of the year. In Greece, Easter is of greater importance. There may be pageantry and feasting at Christmas, but none of the pre-Christmas ‘hype’ that is experienced in the western world.

For those Greeks who observe the Orthodox festivals, a short lent The Fast of the Nativity, begins this season on Nov. 17 and ends on Christmas Eve. The Presentation of the Virgin Mary on Nov 31 is the most important feast day, especially for the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

St. Nicholas isn’t the Greek Santa Claus; he is the patron saint of seamen. On Dec. 8 the little churches on the Greek Islands celebrate his day with the blessing of the ‘koliva’ a white dish made to honour the dead. This is taken on voyages to be thrown into the sea to calm stormy waters.

When the short lent, “Makree Sarakostis” ends on Christmas Eve, the Christmas bread, cakes and cookies are baked. Thee will be given to the children who come to sing the ‘kalanda’. These are the Greek carollers. Christopsomo, (hree-STOHP-soh-moh) means “Christ’s Bread,” and is a fixture in Greek Orthodox homes at Christmas. Except in homes where families celebrate western customs, the stockings are not hung on Christmas Eve. Gifts aren’t exchanged til New Years Day.

On Christmas morning, to the greeting of “Kala Hreestooyena: Merry Christmas” the family sits down to a traditional feast of delicious Greek foods and sweet. The most important feature of the day is the proportioning of the Christmas bread.

The real celebration begins on New Years Eve. It is a social evening when men play cards and gamble the night away, and children sing their carols, accompanied by the chiming of little silver triangles. Their favourite song is about Aghios Vassilis (St Basil). He will come, bringing paper and quill pens, because it is St. Basil who is the Santa Claus of Greece. St. Basil was one of the founders of the Greek Orthodox Church, famous as an educator and builder of hospitals and homes for the sick and friendless. The children singing about the benevolent Saint are rewarded with money and sweets.

On New Year’s Eve, as the bells chime in the new year, gifts are exchanged and glasses are clinked in the traditional toasts, a greeting common the world over: “Eftikhismenos oh Kaynooyio Kronios” – Happy New Year.

I was far away from my family and friends that Christmas in Greece, but it was a rich experience, one I will never forget.

Author’s Note: Today Christmas is a bit different in Greece than it was back when I spent my first Christmas away from home. Now almost everyone buys and decorates a Christmas tree, real or artificial. Greenery and branches were decorated in Greece around New Years as far back as antiquity. Sometimes little boats were decorated too.

Athens Christmas Food Tour

If You Go To Greece For Christmas:

Traditional Greek Christmas carols

Christmas Traditions and Customs in Greece

About the author:
Ruth Kozak spent her first Christmas away from her home in Canada when she went to live in Athens, Greece in 1983. It was an experience she’s never forgotten. She remembers especially missing her family at home and the traditional Canadian turkey dinner on Christmas Day. Ruth lived in Greece most of the ‘80’s but after that first Christmas she usually went home to Canada. For more of her travel stories and blogs see www.ruthkozak.com

Photo Credits:
Athens Christmas decorations by Vouliagmeni / Public domain
Russian icon of Saint Nicholas by The original uploader was CulturalUniverse at English Wikipedia. / CC BY-SA
Madonna and child by Theophanes the Greek / Public domain