By chance I saw an interesting Ikaria report by GZ author Hubert Eichheim in the Greece newspaper found.
Ikaria is a peculiar island best endowed with natural beauties. Customs, music, songs and dances have a distinctive character and the dialect still contains words that have been saved from antiquity. The economic crisis is also leaving its mark here, but it cannot deter the residents’ desire to party.
Ikaria is rich in water. Especially on the less steep mountain slopes on the north side of the island, numerous rivulets bubble up, form reservoirs and allow the fertile earth to sprout.
Huge plane trees, strong oaks, chestnut trees with their prickly fruits, tall olive trees and, above all, all kinds of fruit that thrive here: apricots, peaches, sour cherries and mirabelle plums. The Icariots made tons of jam and sweets. But only for their families.
The water-containing valley furrows near Raches in the west and near Messaria in the middle of the island are particularly lush. Seven villages stretch up to 800 meters in Messaria. Their houses, which stand apart from each other, are embedded in the overwhelming vegetation, from which come not only the smells but also the sounds of the animals kept by the farmers: cows, donkeys, chickens, barking dogs, pigs, horses (the latest trend) and above all Goats and goats again and again, tied to a short rope at the foot down in the valleys, up in the mountains as wild goats that run around freely until they are caught for the festivals, in the cauldrons of a communal kitchen or in the Phlisphos restaurant in the harbor town of Evdilos land a delicious specialty.
The old stone houses with narrow, high windows and heavy slate roofs are usually hidden behind the lush vegetation, with an inviting and shady courtyard in front of them, which makes outdoor living possible in summer. In recent years, many of the houses on the streets and around the core of the villages have been extensively and sometimes tastelessly restored. Where access by car is not possible, they are mostly uninhabited and gradually fall into disrepair. Then they become victims of the graffiti sprayers who leave their slogans wherever there is a larger wall. On one of these ruins I discovered five stenciled PASOK emblems. Underneath, someone had painted the word “Siemens” with a brush, and someone else had painted white lime over it. The message still gets through.
A distinctive character
Because of its topographical characteristics with its steep mountains in the south and the lack of bays in the north for possible landings by pirates and warlike neighbors, Ikaria was never emptied of its indigenous population, like Samos and many other islands. As a result, the language – the dialect still contains words that were saved from antiquity -, customs, music, songs and dances have a distinctive character. Obviously also the rhythm of life. I don’t know of any group of people who move so slowly and have completely different concepts of time as the icariotic inhabitants, who in the summer only start living after 8 p.m. and then go about their business or pleasure well after midnight. Before 8:30 p.m. there is no point in looking for an open shop in the villages up on the mountains.
Joy of life and longevity
However, you shouldn’t expect peace at night. Until the morning, the visitor’s ear is caressed or harassed by the wise men of Ikariotiko, who accompany the islanders’ village and church festivals, which are celebrated somewhere else almost every day in the summer months. The Ikariotiko is played by a violin as the melody and a lute for the rhythm and is based on an evenly progressive rhythm that is resolved after each bar with a quick sequence of steps, without any violence. Despite or because of the crisis, these festivals have recently been more popular than ever before. Whether young or old, almost every Ikariote can master this rather complicated round dance. The village festivals reach their peak well after midnight and don’t end until 9 a.m. About four years ago I witnessed a wedding in a village square that clashed with a congregation of mourners. While the mourners sipped their consolation coffee with drooping faces, the wedding party danced the Ikariotiko happily, albeit wearily. Perhaps this sensual pleasure is also responsible for the fact that the inhabitants of this island live older on average than all other Europeans. The American broadcaster CNN has reported that an investigation has shown that 120 people over 90 years old live on Ikaria. At 1.5%, this is a much higher average than anywhere else – not just in Europe.
Jackal Island
Perhaps it has been two hundred years since pirates who invaded Ikaria forgot a boy. After weeks, locals found him feral and hungry. They took him in and gave him the name Tsakalias (the jackal). Every day in the summer months you can see a man sitting in the Kafenion in Akamatra or in the Café Tourva in Evdilos, who stands out because of his long, loose gray hair, Argyris Tsakalias. Fifty years ago, he prepared for a high office in the Greek Orthodox Church together with Patriarch Bartholomew, then came the break with the church. He married and had three children, including the beautiful daughter Elektra, who sometimes appears in television series. The marriage fell apart. Argyris became an ardent representative of anarchism. He runs a bookstore with relevant literature in the Athens artists’ district of Exarchia. Argyris has a sister, Moshula, who is married to the priest Xiros. They gave birth to 11 children together.
Three of them were sent to Korydallos Prison to serve life sentences. They were members of the terrorist organization “17. November,” which murdered 21 people. I asked the former mayor of Akamatra if no one knew anything about what the three brothers were doing. “Of course we knew they were extremist leftists. But we have always had all varieties of this variety on Ikaria. We knew how they thought, but not how they acted.” Many young Greeks today make pilgrimages to Akamatra because of the Xiros brothers. Christodoulos Xiros did not return from prison leave at the end of 2013 and has been in hiding ever since.
Hubert Eichheim (Greece newspaper)
In the second part of our Ikaria report by GZ author Hubert Eichheim, readers will find out, among other things: something about the impenetrable forest of Ranti, the magical Pramnios wine that Homer already mentioned, and about the political peculiarities of the island.