Cover photo by Eftichios Tsaousidis
Article by Nikos Kakagias
Edited by Harrys Pourouzidis
There are certain strange days when the sun is late, very late, and when it finally appears, it is pale and sullen.
Thats exactly how we saw it that morning above Mavrovouni, and we looked at one another full of questions. Some spoke of bad omens, others scoffed, and then all of us fell silent when the scenery unfolded in light, revealing what “the night” had hidden.
The water, an unmoving mirror, turned mauve at its far edges and warm where the bloody-red sun struck it more directly.
Dead tree trunks with their dry arms raised in one final but futile plea, stood in the middle of that watery stillness, which, alas, was showing us its gentler face. Their reflections were etched in chilling detail, until image and object became one single form, darkening the gaze and creating doubts that only a second look could set back into the proper order of things.
The lens, however, without a trace of emotion, recorded images that, beyond their otherworldly beauty, gave off the sickly sweet smell of decay and the helplessness of despair. The silent cries of these “skeletons” in the harsh light made clear the scale of human folly and reminded us, in the most painful way, of the fate awaiting those who believe they rule over creation.
Human foolishness named it “Daniel,” as if nature’s whims could ever be measured by human standards. And so Daniel came, a terrible punisher, and in a single night took back what people had taken from nature in the distant 1963.
He filled again the hollow northwest of Volos, tearing down illusions and depriving thousands of lives of their view towards the future. And so Kanalia (Channels) became once more what its name had always declared it to be. Only now, with the old boats warped and the memories of fishing life dried out, all that remains are recollections.
These memories the locals preserve and tend to with labour and boundless respect in the large hall, for them and for all the generations that will decide to remain there. It is a space whose size surprises, given the scale of the village, and proclaims their tireless will to show the wealth of their cultural tradition to anyone willing to feel it.
Humbled and shaken, we stood mouth-gapping before all that this long-suffering land conceals, and before the scale of endurance shown by ordinary people who, again and again, see the labour of their lives destroyed by the reversals of a rudderless political authority.
An authority that — who knows? — followed some feasibility study and dried up the lake, turning fishermen into farmers by force, overnight.
The lakebed was designated as farmland and made available for cultivation, without title deeds. After about forty years (and after the plain that had been allocated turned out to be barren), simultaneously and dramatically altering the region’s microclimate, the original decision was revised.
So they decided to restore the lake.
All of it?
No.
Did they pay compensation?
Well, no, since there were no title deeds.
So they enclosed it within a dam, removing nearly 40% of its surface area because, as they said, they thought it would never fill up again. But Nemesis, too, had a name, and one night she reclaimed the entire area, including the part that the fools had sealed off outside the reservoir’s embankments, leaving the helpless locals to watch their livelihoods return to the water.
We did not applaud the presentation we had watched unfolding on the monitor when the lights came on. Several of us even tried to believe it was merely the change in light that had brought moisture to our eyes.
In the end, however, we promised to bring into the light what our eyes had seen and what had touched our hearts.
Yet that heart remained with the lake’s other face as well: the bright one, the warm and beautiful one, the face of life that exists around this lovely place, which on earlier visits had allowed us to see its smiling side. This is the lake Karla we love to see, and the lake Karla we want to see again.
A source of life and beauty.
We kindly thank the Museum of Lake Culture of Karla and Sotiris Ganatsios for their generous hospitality and guided tour.
