There are many areas in our country that breathe away from the glaring reality of television and the noisy consumerism of the big cities. Mountainous areas like mountainous Nafpaktia. Or the small settlements on the north-western border of the country that never raised their heads after the post-war devastation. Even the thyme-scented micro-mountains that the two-month tourist “spring” condemns to the desolation of the remaining months.

To the weary city dwellers, the images of these outlying areas emanate something otherworldly, otherworldly. Their lures irritate the standard logic and function of the big city dwellers. A myth of exoticism surrounds all these destinations which, despite their attraction, do not seem to have a future, since life will continue to play its long-standing “play” in the cities.

Their diagnosis, now a global phenomenon, documented by sociologists, ethnologists and analysts, is slowly eating away at the periphery in two ways. Either by literally making it disappear (desolation of villages, administrative integration, etc.) or by turning it into a picturesque (visitable) attraction without daily pulsating life and function by changing the use of social daily life, with the appearance, in the middle of nowhere, of guesthouses, extreme sports in the mountains and a lot of -ing (trekking, canoeing, climbing).

So-called alternative tourism, i.e. the approach to nature and the “conversation” of visitors from the city with the indigenous inhabitants and their culture, presupposes that such a culture exists and functions, i.e. that there is authentic, natural life and not a life that is constructed for the benefit of tourists-consumers, in places without doctors and schools. Because in this case the tourist products and services provided cannot guarantee either fidelity and historical accuracy or aesthetics…

… I am in Thrace. In the prefecture of Xanthi, which smells of bassma smoke and chocolate cariocas. Two elements that irritate the nostrils and remind you of the glamour of the Xanthian bourgeoisie of tobacco merchants and the tobacco growing areas you come across as soon as you leave the city.

We will head towards the eastern Pomakochoria, and as we walk around the city the figures of Muslim women in headscarves and long coats prepare us for entering the world of a minority that breaks the uniformity of westernized modern Greek dress with its sartorial diversity. Starting from this strict and almost uniform dress, we prepare to get to know private social codes, without having the key to open them, which would reveal the charm of an enclosed world, which, despite the constitutional guarantee of equal coexistence with it, still remains silent and builds its own references to symbols, “gods” and values.

Everyone calls them Pomaks, a name that often sounds derogatory to their ears. The attempt to rename them as Rhodopeans, based on geographical stigma, ethnologically discolours their population and historically dehydrates their path.

Short chronicle of a long journey

The Pomak populations cover the whole of Thrace, an area that was inhabited 3,000-4,000 years BC. Thracians are a Pelasgic people, as old as the Illyrians, Leleges, Cares, Phrygians, Armenians and others. Linguistically homogeneous, many of these peoples took part in the Trojan War and, as far as we know, communicated (verbally) perfectly with the Achaeans (Iliad: D’ 533, K. 436 and 243).

The land of Orpheus and Dionysus, which reached as far as India (“And the nation of the Greeks is the greatest nation after the Indians of all men”, says Herodotus, V, chap. III), Thrace is home to tribes related to the Greeks, such as the Vistones, Agrians, Sappaians, Kikonians, Xanthians, Satres, who have sometimes left their names in cities. All these tribes have been subjected to colonization by the Greeks of the South since 700 BC.

Now the Thracian people repel the attacks of the Persians. The city of Satres (which we will visit) heroically repelled the Achaemenids, as Herodotus tells us. The men of the region distinguished themselves in battles. ‘… Threki dysmahotato’, Euripides says of them in his anti-war poem Hecabee (1056). Alexander the Great also recruited from the same male and valiant population, especially from the Agrians, Arrian tells us.

Thrace was last subjugated to the Romans in 46 AD and until the 6th century AD the Greek language was spoken and the inhabitants were Christians. The mountains are inhabited by the Agrians, the Vissians and the Deans, now Christianized peoples. From the 7th^th century onwards, the populations were settled by Slavic tribes (Slavs, Slovenes) and later by Bulgarians.

The common religion favours admixtures. However, the Greek physiognomy began to change mainly after the occupation of Thrace by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In 1353 the Turks occupied Koumoutzina (today’s Komotini) and Mohammedanism displaced Christianity from the mountain populations. By 1660 over 200 churches and over 300 chapels were demolished. However, within the cultural melting pot of the Pax Ottomana, the ethno-racial boundaries are fluid. It is reported that the Komak Kizilbas in the villages around Liptsa in Bulgaria have not ceased to be conscious of their Greek-Christian origins.

In the Russo-Turkish war of 1876, the Pomaks, chased by Bulgarian gangs, resisted, claiming their independence and refusing to be incorporated into New Bulgaria. With the First Balkan War they were pressured into Bulgarianization by the violent demolition of their mosques. Some 150,000 Pomaks are forcibly Christianized. In 1919, in the referendum held in Echino, they asked to be united with Greece. With the Treaty of Lausanne they finalized their residence in Greece.

War, occupation and civil war find the Pomaks in the conflict of ideologies, religions and expansionist aspirations. At the end of the war, almost all the border areas, now destroyed, fall into decay and abandonment, inaugurating the two Hellas. Politics of intolerance, fanaticism, religious fundamentalism and phobic syndromes create in the regions of the Pomaks a ghettoised Greece, separated by outposts and entry controls. It was not until 1995 that the region was ‘liberated’ and Greece lifted the barriers and welcomed one of its ethnic extremes. A dialogue, which has not yet been concluded, begins then, for the anthropological and ethnological study of the Pomak population. Theories are piled up and one contradicts the other.

Thucydides in the 4th^th century BC speaks about Agrians or Agraians, who reside in Rhodope. The word Pomakos – according to others – is a contraction of the word apomachos and refers to the returning soldiers of Alexander the Great. Another theory is that they belonged, before Islamisation, to the Christian-Muslim religion of the Achirgians. However, the name was established between 1700-1800 from the Slavic verb pomagan = to help and pomag or Pomak = helpers, because both the ancients and the Bulgarians as well as the Byzantines used the locals as slaves. Moreover, it is interesting to note N. Xerotyri’s interpretation that the name Pomak comes from the ancient word pomax meaning drinker. After all, the inhabitants of ‘multi-wind’ Thrace were known for their brave wine-drinking.

On the road of Kosynthos

We leave the city of Xanthi and head north. The reason is a kind invitation from the prefecture to visit a restored village in the NE, Kottani. But the passage through the Pomak zone is accompanied by beauty traps.

In the village of Oraion, an hour from Xanthi, Chaleel is waiting for us at the last active watermill of the region, one of the 62 in the prefecture. We ascend side by side with the Kosynthos River. Its waters are scarce and calm. There is no evidence that the man-eating horses of Diomedes, captured by Hercules in his eighth feat, became furious drinking from its water.

The area, mountainous, is covered with oaks and beech trees, taller than fir trees. There is little arable land. In a mountainous and humid place, tobacco farming has found its kingdom. Tobacco is everywhere in small triangles of land.

In Sminthis, the first big Pomakochori, we take the road to the left and Kosynthos turns with us to go to the springs of the Virgin Forest of Haidou and Zefyros. After the village of Oraion and in 20 minutes we reach the mill of Chaleel. Next to the bridge of Papa, crossed by a tributary of Kosynthos, the old building has been standing here for over 200 years, grinding wheat and corn. On the fruits of the surrounding trees and the fence hang the hops (scientific name Humulus lupulus). The dried petals are used as yeast for bread.

Chaleel leaves the needling (nizanie) of the tobacco for a moment and greets us with hands brown and bitter from the tobacco leaves. With pride and despite his age, he and we climb with him up a steep slope to the two-arched bridge of Papa Lefteris (11.70 m long, the large arch). The priest who built it or built it next to his estates (at the same time as the mill), made sure to impress his faith with a cross embossed on the western key of the arch. Mint grows through the crevices of the stone bridge and the pavement is filled with hollow nuts, due to the drought. The thorny tree bush of the chabourer (Prunus spinosa) with its beautiful blue-purple fruits, which turn into sour jam, marks the path that will bring us back to the public road.

We set off for Thermae before dark. On the way, the only sign of human civilization are the numerous fountains, taking advantage of the abundance of water. After Echino and for about an hour we travel alone in the forest, on a good road, climbing up to about 500 m. Here we are joined by the river Komsatos, which originates from the Rhodope Mountains near the village of Diasparto. It is already sooty and cold, although October is blissful.

The land in Thermes is perforated. Water vapour rises from everywhere from the hot waters that run freely from everywhere, leaving on the soil the colour imprints of the ingredients they contain. The bathing season is over. The rooms built for bathers are now empty. The few houses are dark and in the only tavern we eat hot bean soup and soutzoukakia. The endless televised debates about the leadership of PASOK gather the few and sleepy men around the set.

The community sanatorium next door is a newer building with individual baths. The facilities of the old hammam are located just before entering the village. Nowadays, they were in operation before 1928. Now the water falls from above into a concrete pool that offers… free of charge its therapeutic properties, especially to the little kids who like to slobber, at temperatures of 40-45 C. In other parts of the village the water runs fiery over… 53 C!

The road to Kottani is dirt…

We are in Thermes, in a morning bathed in a thick humidity and cold that you feel like you are chewing it! Before we set off for Kottani we decide to look for the relief rock painting of Mithras just outside the village. A sign points to a small overgrown hill… with no path! After an adventurous climb, we see the rock painting drowned in blackberries and overgrown vines, next to a spring. The representation depicts the god Mithras, who was introduced to Greece by the Roman Empire in its last year (3rd century AD).The monument is of great archaeological importance not only for Thrace but for all of Greece. Mithras is depicted sacrificing the Sacred Bull. From his victim spring seeds and fruits that lead to the birth of the human species. The moon, the lion, the snake are the symbols of Good and Evil in their eternal struggle.

I can’t help but associate the rock painting with the widespread custom of bull sacrifice in this northeastern corner of the country, with the purifying kurbania that fortunately still take place in parts of the once united Hellenism (Imvros, Mytilene).

The road to Medousa, the next village after Thermae, is paved. We travel thorny along the river Komsato in a landscape that unfolds identically from southern Serbia to the villages before Plovdiv. Rivers large and small furrow small meadows between shady forests.

Medusa delights me with her beauty. About three hundred people share the houses of the village , colorful on the banks of the Kosmatos. The minaret and the old two-arch bridge stand out amidst stone and wood houses with chutma coatings. Their bright colours shine in the October light and the baxes with their round “heads” of cabbage, untrimmed beans, uncut corn and, further on, the conical “Kupen” are proof of the rural character of the inhabitants.

In the centre of the village, a treeless piece of land, with “planted” stone slabs or built, with the names of those who have left for some paradise, is the community cemetery. Around and around, the children playing learn early on that those who have gone still “dwell” next door, turning the life-and-death rotation into an eternal game of succession.

These thoughts bring us down to the garbage that is thrown into the river without the care of either the inhabitants or the authorities. Brians (a type of trout) swim among cans, cardboard boxes, plastic and rubble.

After Medousa we travel the last 7-8 km of the dirt road to Kottani. We meet with the kindly Cemil Halinoglou, who left his shop in Xanthi and invites us to visit his grandfather’s house, which he has turned into a private museum.

On a hill opposite Kottani and above the course of the Komsato River, in a rural complex of residents, stands the restored and well-kept house of Cemil. From its paved courtyard we admire the lazy Kompsatos with its serpentine movement, which a few kilometres further on crosses the borders of the prefecture of Xanthi, crosses Komotini to join the waters of Lake Vistonida.

Cemil tells us about his plans and desires. How he will be able to turn his home into a guesthouse from which one can hike, rest and taste delicious local dishes, like the pâté (potato pie) that his wife had prepared for us, along with pickled peppers and sourdough bread.

From the gazebo of the arbor, the 30 or so houses of Kottani stand in a wise vertical order. Restored not always at the right height, since both the cement is prominent in many interventions and the placement of … double lanterns is misplaced and far from the other popular architectural elements. However, more important than any aesthetic irregularities is the vitality of the settlement, something that still seems unattainable. “Our village has become beautiful, but it has no people”, monologue the 2-3 elderly residents we meet at the entrance of the village.

In Cemil’s nice and meraklidic house there is also Ismet, a tall blond Pomak who shows me his village on the opposite mountain. They call it a wasteland. He lives with his mother and 4-5 other fellow villagers. There is no road. Everything stops at Kottani, and he walks back and forth on foot or on animals, 2 hours away.

Behind Bulgaria’s borders, everyone had a relative before ethnic divisions were raised and rival political theories prevailed on both sides.

Before leaving Pomakochoria, we visit Satres. This is the headquarters of the Women’s Association. It is Ramadan season, yet a colourful table awaits us to taste its products. The female members of the association, cheerful and hospitable, honour us with their presence and we buy the wonderful jam made of cranberries, chickpeas and sweet watermelon. We taste pestil (apricot paste) and eat klin (rice cake) and yeasted fluffy bread.

… We are about to arrive in Xanthi. The Pomaks are already far away. But in our own world, we will remember the names of Semiha, who will be syrupinging the pumpkin with the women of the Cooperative, Hassan tending to the passing bathers in Thermae, Khalil filling the sacks with cornmeal, Cemil continuing to collect traditional objects in the house-museum and Ismet dreaming of an easier life.

Filmography

Dem. Kitsikoudis: “You talk too much… you cry too much”, 2007.

Bibliography

1997. C. Varvounis: The daily life of the Pomaks, Odysseus 1997.
1998. Granka: Traditional settlements of mountainous Xanthi, Prefecture of Xanthi 1999.
1999. Trubeta: Constructing Identities for the Mutsulmani of Thrace, Minority Groups Research Centre, Kritiki 2001.
2000. Hamdi: How difficult it is to be a Pomakos today, Ardine magazine, February-March 1948.
2001. Georgantzis: The importance of names: Achrians and Pomaks, Paper presented at the 1st World Congress of Thracian Expatriates, Xanthi 1993.
2002. Panagiotidis: The Pomaks and their language, Gnomi 1997.

Γ. Paul, C. Panjoglou, V. Aivaliotis, S. Shadow: Travelogue in Thrace, PAKETHRA 1992.

1. Kokkas, N. Konstantinidis, R. Mehmetali: The Pomakochoria of Thrace.

Komsatos River-Ecological Map, Environmental Group of the Glafki Secondary School.