Article by Nikos Kakagias
Cover photo by Nikos Kakagias
Edited by Harrys Pourouzidis
The crossing at Krystallopigi was hardly known to anyone until it opened like a small breathing space for a forgotten people. From that moment on, thousands who had been trapped inside a regime of madness, lowered their heads and went through countless encounters of mutual suspicion while building, quite literally with their own hands, a relationship that weathered every storm before finally reaching the shore of trust between our people. What had once seemed unthinkable to those on that side of the line became reality when “Mammon” winked at them and flung the door wide open to financial opportunities.
The rest was almost bound to follow and along with it came the pleasant surprise of a beautiful, unspoiled country, whose people’s hospitality recalled the forgotten, and now entirely unfashionable, manners of our own earlier generations.
With such thoughts filling the conversation, we hardly realised we had crossed the border. The landscape did not help either; identical to the one on our side, it reminded us just how artificial borders truly are.
The crossing at Krystallopigi was hardly known to anyone until it opened like a small breathing space for a forgotten people. From that moment on, thousands who had been trapped inside a regime of madness, lowered their heads and went through countless encounters of mutual suspicion while building, quite literally with their own hands, a relationship that weathered every storm before finally reaching the shore of trust between our people. What had once seemed unthinkable to those on that side of the line became reality when “Mammon” winked at them and flung the door wide open to financial opportunities.
The rest was almost bound to follow and along with it came the pleasant surprise of a beautiful, unspoiled country, whose people’s hospitality recalled the forgotten, and now entirely unfashionable, manners of our own earlier generations.
With such thoughts filling the conversation, we hardly realised we had crossed the border. The landscape did not help either; identical to the one on our side, it reminded us just how artificial borders truly are.
- Korçë -
Korçë, with its weighty historical name, stretched lazily across the plain, with the imposing Morava mountain range rising to its southeast. Spread out and low-built, the city has the typical features of a Balkan town, with its squares and commercial life gathered around the historic centre. Historic not merely in name, but in substance: low houses, projecting upper floors, and rough cobblestones that proved somewhat uncomfortable for our pampered feet. Our cameras filled with familiar scenes, the kind we all swore we had seen somewhere before. Honoring our duty we climbed, panting and with our tongues hanging out, all the way to the upper floor of the tower that dominates the central square.
Surely some twisted mind had come up with the idea that, in order to enjoy the view, one should not only pay an entrance fee but also lose one’s breath.
The view was what one expected, of course, with the imposing bulk of Morava to the east stealing the show, while the tiled roofs gave a nostalgic colour to the city spread out below. Minarets touched the sky and exchanged prayers with domes, while we kept ourselves busy with poses playing with the light.
The city was charming from above but soon we departed the high grounds and left for the lower and more approachable streets for later.
Korçë, with its weighty historical name, stretched lazily across the plain, with the imposing Morava mountain range rising to its southeast. Spread out and low-built, the city has the typical features of a Balkan town, with its squares and commercial life gathered around the historic centre. Historic not merely in name, but in substance: low houses, projecting upper floors, and rough cobblestones that proved somewhat uncomfortable for our pampered feet. Our cameras filled with familiar scenes, the kind we all swore we had seen somewhere before. Honoring our duty we climbed, panting and with our tongues hanging out, all the way to the upper floor of the tower that dominates the central square.
Surely some twisted mind had come up with the idea that, in order to enjoy the view, one should not only pay an entrance fee but also lose one’s breath.
The view was what one expected, of course, with the imposing bulk of Morava to the east stealing the show, while the tiled roofs gave a nostalgic colour to the city spread out below. Minarets touched the sky and exchanged prayers with domes, while we kept ourselves busy with poses playing with the light.
The city was charming from above but soon we left the high ground for the lower and more approachable streets.
- Pustec -
Northward we went, toward the southern shore of Great Prespa, the lake shared by three neighbours. Utterly indifferent to all of it, and seemingly abandoned, it watches its shores wither as it dries out in these waterless times, never imagining that it might serve as a setting for photographic moments.
Pustec, a lakeside little village with a rather awkward name for the Greek language, stood equally empty and deserted. The impressive number of new houses confirms the new Balkan way of things: nostalgia and the hard-earned savings of those who left to work in the markets of the West replacing ancestral homes with new ones, which then wait their turn in the long queue of neglect.
The boat trip we had hoped for never happened, as the Vardar wind was dangerously stirring both our hair and the surface of the lake. So we took the road back, hoping for a pleasant rest in a local taverna. It proved satisfying enough, especially for the restaurateur’s pocket, since, along with his generous attentions, he also handed us a thoroughly “Greek-style bill” probably influenced by his many years working in Greece.
- Sveti Naum Monastery -
The morning of the second day was brighter, and the mood of the group inevitably followed the weather conditions. Our destination lay even farther north, and another lake awaited us.
Lake Ohrid, however, was worthy of its reputation. Once Pogradec had allowed us through, we reached the border with our other neighbour and headed for the monastery of Saint Naum.
Some in the group already knew the place, and despite the early hour, the tourist hordes, evidently hoping to beat the next hordes, had the same idea as us and descended just as early. We ran and stumbled in our effort to find corners free of human presence in what was, admittedly, a beautiful place. It took quite some effort. In the end, of course, we more or less managed it, and even had spare time for our coffee in the company of the friendly crowds.
- Pogradec -
“Engines in reverse,” ordered Captain Dimos, and back we went to Pogradec.
“But where are we stopping? We’ve already seen the lakeshore!”
We watched him disappear into a park across from the lake, and, faithful as ever, we followed.
Well, it was not what one simply calls a park. It was a vast area, beautifully arranged into little islands between channels of running water, with walking paths beneath the natural umbrella of towering trees, grassy clearings bathed in light, and we wandered amazed with our lens apertures just as wide as our jaw dropped mouths, playing with the light in the foliage.
We lost the track of time in the end just like children on a school trip. A few effortless conclusions, which demolished the last remaining stereotypes about our likeable neighbours, made the comparison with our own affairs even more uncomfortable.
“There, that’s Hoxha’s summer house. It used to be guarded by a tank,” Dimos added.
We were irritated, not so much by the tank, but because he had spoiled our mood by making us think about the deep contradiction between words and actions carried out in the name of a people who were literally groaning under the outdated authoritarianism of a madman.
Fortunately, that sad parenthesis lasted only as long as the summer house itself, and we soon forgot it as we walked along the beautiful lakeside zone of Ohrid. It should be stressed that this is one of the cleanest and deepest lakes in Europe, reaching a depth of 180 metres.
Conversation flowed easily, the atmosphere relaxed, embroidered by the voices of children cycling between the people enjoying the afternoon sun. It did not exactly ignite our photographic imagination, but neither did it feel strange to us.
“Where’s Danis, guys?”
“He stayed behind, following a little boy, trying to catch the moment the ball leaves his hands for the basket…”
Some smiled, and someone murmured:
“He misses his grandson and their little basketball court…”
And somehow, exhausted, we reached the moment when we left behind the spacious, smiling Pogradec. It may not match the picturesque charm of the city on the opposite side of the lake Ohrid, but it offers generously what many Greek towns would envy: space and a sense of freedom.
- Korçë -
Our legs were sending ominous signals, but Korçë and its historic centre were waiting to reveal their final secrets. Faithful to its call, we left no alley unwalked, placing one by one the pieces of the puzzle that would form the final image and saving the surprise for the very last piece.
A well-kept two-storey building, modern in architectural design, revealed at its entrance a Greek helping hand in its creation, and inside it an astonishing collection of icons from the Byzantine past and beyond. Yet the question that occupied us was not how this truly impressive museum had been built, but how so many sacred heirlooms had been saved, preserved, and finally brought to light after so many years of darkness and declared war against every form of religion, until the times finally allowed it to reappear.
What ultimately stole the impressions was the presence, on the upper floor, of an entire carved wooden iconostasis from a church in Ersekë, dramatically lit, giving the group the opportunity to bring the demanding day to a fitting close.
At the dinner that followed, someone said the group’s internal odometer had recorded fifteen kilometres of walking.
Our faces revealed exhaustion, but such a full day had painted smiles there too, smiles that widened as the weary legs of the afflicted found comfort on the soft sofas of our hospitable lounge.
“The night is young!” someone howled, and two lonely cowboys went out to see how the city lights shone beneath the night sky.
The weather, damp and cold, had clearly persuaded the locals to stay in the comfort and warmth of their homes. The wet paving stones in the alleys seemed to feel the absence of footsteps and heels.
The night ended in the atmosphere of an Irish pub with Albanian flavour, that moistened our throats with local beer and the sound of old rock songs.
- Voskopoje -
The final morning was as cheerful as the face of our host, whose wife cooked for us pancakes and cheese as a farewell offering for our route toward the mountains to the northwest.
Somewhere on a slope, stood the beautiful village of what had once been known as the flourishing Moscopole, with its rich history and its significant contribution to Greek education. Its prosperity reached its peak in the seventeenth century, before slipping almost imperceptibly into oblivion until later that reintroduced itself in the present as Voskopoje: a village of a couple of hundred Vlach-speaking Orthodox inhabitants, with a bright future ahead of it as a mountain destination.
Our first stop, with the brilliant sun sparkling on the drops of dew, was naturally the single-arched stone bridge, wonderfully preserved. Then came the church of Saint Athanasios, a single-aisled basilica with a cemetery in its courtyard and Greek names on the gravestones.
Eftichios murmured something into Dimos’s ear who then asked a friendly shepherd nearby a question. The shepherd pointed east. Shipskë, or Sipischa, as it was also known, was another Vlach village in the old district of Moscopole, and so that was where we headed. The road was dirt, but that did not discourage Dimos. If there is rough ground to be found, that is exactly where he wants to go.
After a sufficient amount of jolting, we reached the monastery of Saint George, at the entrance to what could hardly be called a village, and dismounted for our first inspection of the site. The katholikon of the old monastery, the only remnant of the former complex, bore clear signs of restoration, with Greek participation too, according to a posted sign.
We scattered in search of angles and compositions, and when we came together again, we saw the stern look on Eftichios’s face as he announced:
“This was the place.”
“It must have been December. The snow reached our waists, and we went in, a platoon with its captain, to take shelter in the monastery from the bitter cold outside.
In the morning, the Italian barrage woke us. Although they were retreating, they were still hitting us from above. I took the Bren gun and went out through the side gate. Bullets were sieving the snow, and my fingers were freezing on the trigger. The bursts from my machine gun gave the Italians the chance to locate me, but I had gone wild.
‘Giorgi, your arm is soaked in blood,’ the sergeant said, and only then did I see it.
They took me down to the base below Moscopole, where they had the makeshift surgeries. The bullet had gone in one side and out the other without touching the bone.
‘Stay in the infirmary,’ the doctor said.
But I had left the others up there to manage on their own. They were just a handful, my boy. So I went back up, took the Bren again, and I do not even know how many magazines I fired. Then I took another shot in the thigh, my boy, and the sky spun around me.
They carried me down a second time.
That is how we fought.”
The coffee in the pretty little courtyard where we sat were perfectly decent, and when we began searching our pockets to pay, Eftichios’s hoarse voice was heard.
“These are on me… like a memorial, you know.”
We turned and saw the tall man of the group somehow looking even taller, and there, at the corner of his eye, the morning ray of sun sparkled to what seemed as a tear.
No one spoke. Our heads bowed “In obedience to the words of those who came before.”
