Touring the Vlach Villages of Greece

**~~Papastratosels26~~** · 01-02-2019, 07:24 PM

I have always felt challenged to follow some of the old paths marked by Wace and Thompson in their travels. Early one morning, with a shepherd's crook (carlig) in hand, I took off on the three-hour walk from Samarina to Furka, another old Vlach village. The crook made me feel more secure, for walking in the Pindus Mountains, you will surely be attacked by starving, vicious sheep dogs. Different people have different advice as to how to get the dogs to back off, from throwing rocks at them and chasing them, to merely sitting right down on the spot; you will have to find your own method. Sheep dogs notwithstanding, the walk to Furka is an exhilarating, peaceful experience, with nothing around you but snow-capped peaks (even in early July) and the sound of your own footsteps breaking the otherwise total silence. I saw a couple of eagles flying overhead, part of the scenery of places like this. From a distance, Furka looks empty, a rubble of stone, and when you get there, it's not much more. Like its counterparts, Furka has seen better days, and even in summer only a handful of families return. There are even a few Farsherot families living there now, though originally it was not a Farsherot village. Oddly enough, the first person I met there was an old Fukiat, Dimitris Ziozis, who was visiting his village from Flushing, New York! He said he was planning to stay, after 50 years in New York. There are no accommodations in Furka, but a stroll through it reveals the beauty of its abandoned homes. You sense there is a great local history in this village, so splendid in its isolation. As I have done in too many other Vlach villages, I wondered where all the people had gone, and why they had left such peaceful beauty. Economics? The idea of purchasing an abandoned home here (from whom?) stayed in my mind over the three-hour walk back to Samarina. The idea is still in my mind -- Furka is so charming!

Since our villages lie off the beaten track, you might try the back road out of Samarina, which passes through four Vlach villages on its way heading north toward the town of Konitsa and on to Albania: Armata, a very small, friendly village of perhaps 100 houses, which was struggling even in Wace and Thompson's time -- it is resilient and still inhabited; Dhistrato (Briaza), where I found Vlach so strong that little children spoke it; pades (Padz); and Palioseli. Wace and Thompson noted that the last two villages were eager to prove their Hellenic origin to visitors, but they have always been pure Vlach villages, and today one still hears the language spoken. Once past Palioseli there is only a Greek village to pass through before descending into the town of Konitsa, which clings to the lip of the northern flanks of the Pindus. Before you lies a vista of Albania's rugged mountains.

**~~Papastratosels26~~** · 01-02-2019, 07:28 PM

Before describing some unusual villages in the Pogoni region of Epirus, let me mention three Vlach villages reached only from the Konitsa road toward Ioannina and the villages of Zagori: Laista (Laka), Vrisohori (Leshnitsa), and Iliohori (Dobrinovo). Wace and Thompson said that Laka, "if asked, would declare itself to be of pure Hellenic stock, but in private all its inhabitants talk Vlach glibly." I've visited this village twice (the first time through the mud of a torrential downpour), and though Vlach is not quite dead yet, the writing is on the wall -- some of the young can still understand a little, but I met only a few able to speak it, and that rather hesitantly. It is a beautiful and remote village (one terrible road in, the same road out), but clearly on the verge of discarding its ethnic heritage. Yet for all its sense of abandonment, Laka flourishes next to Iliohori and Vrisohori, where I met a relative of Michael Dukakis. A retired schoolteacher, he related to me the history of both the village and the Boukis family (maiden name of Dukakis's mother Euterpe) in Greek -- he said, incongruously, that his Vlach was limited, which I found difficult to believe of a 70-year-old man who had grown up in a once-prospering Vlach village. But I fear that both villages, once completely Vlach-speaking, may be left behind soon. What a pity -- such a gorgeous place!

A final word about the Zagori: This is a remarkable corner of Greece, a trove of amazing architectural treasures. The 42 villages of the Zagori are officially designated by the Greek government as "historic settlements." Largely depopulated now, but still hauntingly beautiful, they reflect the proud history of Epirus. There are only a few Vlachs in these villages, but many Sarakatsans, who have recently given up their nomadic, transhumant way of life. If you put your Vlach itinerary aside, this may be the most lovely region Greece has to offer. Its handsome villages, all located near the spectacular Vikos Gorge, include Aristi, Tsepelovo, Vradeto, Skamneli, Monodendri (a remarkable place!), Vitsa, Papingo (two villages), and Kakkouli.

It is time to straddle the Albanian border. North of Ioannina, in the region of Epirus called Pogoni, there are paved roads which lead into some peculiar places. One is Doliana (there are several villages by that name in Greece), which is home to Greeks, Slbanians, Gypsies, and Vlachs. Though the Vlachs are not numerous, they occupy the upper part of the village. And, like all the Vlachs in Pogoni, they call themselves Remen, with origins in Albania. There are more in nearby Visani, and though it is not entirely Vlach, one can still hear the language spoken. Edging even closer to Albania, Delvinaki is a large village, probably 40 percent Vlach. It is the home of the Halkias family, well-known Epirot musicians (Pericles, his son Petros, and Petros's son Babis, follow each other as sixth- or seventh-generation clarinetists in the family). There are also many Vlach-speaking Gypsies in the village (as there are also at Metsovo). It is a prosperous village, as are many others in this area, and there is one obvious clue as to the source of the prosperity: German license plates. Many Greeks and Vlachs from Epirus, and especially from Pogoni, live and work in Germany, returning to their villages in the summer.

**~~Papastratosels26~~** · 01-02-2019, 07:30 PM

Parakalamos, near Delvinaki, is a village of Gypsy musicians, several of whom can hold their own in Vlach. But just east of Delvinaki, past Vasiliko (birthplace of the late Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras), stands Kephalovriso, better known among Vlachs as Migideia. You won't find this village on any travel guides pointing out Vlach centers such as Metsovo or Samarina. Wace and Thompson, surprisingly, knew nothing of it, or it somehow escaped mention in their book, and Winnifrith's only contact with it was through a waiter in Corfu, who said he spoke Vlach at home in this village. He wasn't kidding. Kephalovriso is an entirely Albanian Vlach village, and even today there are a few five-year-olds who master Greek only once they're in school. In most houses, Vlach is still the dominant language. Only a couple of miles from the Albanian border, Kephalovriso is easy to reach. And yet, surely it is one of the most obscure and least-visited of all Vlach villages. No one seems to know about it, and, frankly, Kephalovriso seems to stand alone, embracing Pogoni and Epirus rather than the Vlachs, and unobtrusively speaking its old vernacular in the home (along with Greek) and, evidently, making no big thing of it. It is, by the way, the same Migideia of song, bombarded by German planes during World War II.

There are no Vlach villages in Thesprotia, the region of northwestern Greece, except for an extremely obscure place called Morfion, near the seaside resort of Parga. I stumbled upon the village by accident. It is small, not very modern, and made up of Farsherots not long settled from nomadic life (in fact, traveling somewhere in the Pindus I met a family from Morfion in their summer pastures). In the bustling port city of Igoumenitsa, which features ferries to Corfu and Italy, there are now many settled Farsherots working in hotels and other businesses. But the region is filled with ethnic Albanians.

We somehow tend to think that most villages in northern Greece are Vlach; this is a naive and absurd claim. Anyone who has read Nicholas Gage's book Eleni might entertain the notion that Lia (accent on the "a") is a Vlach village -- it is not, nor are the villages around it. I have been there twice, meeting Mr. Gage on one of those trips. It is high up in the Mourgani Mountains, right on the Albanian border, and Mr. Gage has built a lovely hotel in the village and named it after his mother. It is interesting, mainly as a relic of the bloody Greek Civil War, as are neighboring Babouri, Vitsa, and Tsamantas.

Way up in Greek Macedonia, not too far from the Albanian border, lies the lovely lake town of Kastoria, known for its furriers. There are many Vlachs in the town, all from neighboring mountain villages. One, Ieropigi, is Farsherot -- Vlach is still spoken there, as it is in the larger village of Agios Orestikon (Belkamen), just south of Kastoria. Ieropigi is a curious stop on the Vlach itinerary, deserving of a closer look. Zoe Papazisi-Papatheodorou learned some old Vlach folk-songs in the village. North of Kastoria, right on the border, there are two small but interesting Vlach villages, one practically abandoned, and the other clearly moribund. A few miles from the Albanian border is Vatohori (Breshnitsa), once a well-known Farsherot village. It is now practically a ghost town, with only a few families left, half of whom are Macedonian Slavs. In fact, there are many abandoned villages in this area of Macedonia -- I've walked through several of them, feeling as if I were being watched, though I was the only person in the village, the only living thing, in fact, aside from a stray goat here and there. Vatohori, a very eerie place today, reeks of history, but now its Vlachs are scattered everywhere, their native village long forgotten. I recall leaving it and heading north, the Albanian mountains rising menacingly before me. Travelffig alone on the winding road, I grew concerned with each new "Forbidden Zone" sign I passed, thinking I might have inadvertently entered Albania. But Kristallopigi lay ahead, and I was determined to see it, nestled as it is only a few hundred yards from Albania, not too far from Bilishti. For one accustomed to prosperous places like Metsovo and Samarina, Kristallopigi abruptly brings you down to earth. It is one of the poorest Vlach villages in Greece (a rarity, in fact). In my two visits there some young children spoke Vlach as we walked toward the Albanian border; they didn't seem too thrilled about it, and their older brothers and sisters spoke it better. This village will have a tough time keeping its young people there.

**~~Papastratosels26~~** · 01-02-2019, 07:31 PM

In Greek Macedonia there are almost certainly more Macedonian Slavs than Vlachs, though the Greek government relentlessly insists that there are not many of either. I have walked through more than one village where, in addition to Greek, that strange language was spoken. It is thus only natural that in the large town of Florina, there are Slavs, Greeks, Albanians, and Vlachs. But there are also a few more obscure Vlach villages beyond it. Pisoderi was once a prospering Farsherot village, but almost everyone has packed up and left. There is a new ski resort there, meant to bring in tourist dollars, not Vlachs; as a Vlach village, no prayers can save it; it has a much better chance of surviving as an alpine ski resort. South of Florina is Drosopigi, which also contains ethnic Albanians. A couple of miles north of Pisoderi, in an area that just does not seem like Greece, Winnifrith fell upon Kallithea and Aghios Germanos. I had never heard of these villages until his book came out and so, naturally, had to visit them. There are some Pontic Greeks there, as well as Vlachs, who to me seemed like anything but Vlachs. Not only are both places culturally impoverished, but they are economically poor as well, malting even Kristallopigi look wealthy. Many of the houses were in semi-ruin and both villages were cool to me and my brother Gus. (Perhaps if we had stayed longer, we would have felt differently.) People stared at us strangely when we spoke Vlach, and it felt good to take the road heading west out of the villages and into a little-known and rarely visited area, that little comer of Greek Macedonia tucked away and surrounded by Albania on one side and Lake Prespa on the other. Once again, Winnifrith filled me in on two outlandishly obscure Vlach villages, Pili and Vronderon. Both are small, but still Vlach to this day, though Vronderon seemed to have a healthier atmosphere. Check a map and you'll see their odd location, much closer to Albania than to mainland Greece.

We tend to overlook the fact that the obscure Vlach villages in Greece outnumber the well-known ones. Pleasa was as obscure as any I've previously mentioned; it was brought to significance only because its descendants eventually abandoned it and settled in America, Romania, and Greece. It had a local history, just like all of these villages, but its grinding poverty, old way of life, and sense of a hopeless future ultimately drove everyone out. It seems, however, that these little-known villages stand at the heart of the Vlach experience in the Balkans, that obscure villages parallel the obscure identity of the Vlachs, and that in a way these settlements, always struggling, best typify the Vlach dilemma for ethnic survival within larger, more vibrant societies. Simply put: some make it, and some don't. It is relatively easy for places like Metsovo or Perivoh to hang on to a Vlach ethos; just the opposite is true for these run-down, downtrodden places. Which makes me think of Sisanion, a Vlach village in Macedonia in which no Vlach-speakers are left. Or Blatsa, which was Hellenizing itself in Wace and Thompson's time. And especially Siatista, a prospering Greek town in Macedonia once comprised almost entirely of Samariniats. They haven't left -- their descendants are still there, only today, you won't find even an old man or old woman who can speak it; even worse, you won't find one who will tell you he or she is from an old Vlach family.

**~~Papastratosels26~~** · 01-02-2019, 07:32 PM

Halfway between Florina and Kozani, still in Macedonia, there are two large Vlach villages which need little introduction. There is nothing obscure about them; their histories actually rival those of Samarina and Metsovo. Klissoura is a large Vlach village whose history includes strife and bloodshed as well as prosperity and a Romanian school. The Germans laid siege to it, and so did the Bulgarians; 250 women and children were massacred there in 1944. There are a couple of hotels in the village, and Vlach is spoken by practically everyone over 30; in my time there I saw no efforts by the young to rescue the language but, paradoxically, as Winnifrith pointed out, there is a tangible interest in its Vlach culture, which means there are still some real possibilities here. Klissoura would be an interesting place to observe over the next ten years; it is low- key but proud, conscious of its legacy.

East of Klissoura, and higher up, is a Vlach village of another kind. Nimfaion (Neveska), pictured in Wace and Thompson's book, is still in pretty good shape as Vlach villages go. I spent a couple of nights in one of the village's two hotels, and not finding a ride out of the village, was forced to walk a few winding miles down the mountain to Aetos, the nearest town, and inadvertently I wound up in someone's back yard, where people were speaking Slavic. Nimfaion's history gives you a pretty good idea of the diversity of the Vlachs, of their range in the Balkans, how they've scattered and settled and, in particular, how they've prospered everywhere. Nimfaion is large, clean, and attractive, but you get the idea that the Vlachs come here to rest and to meet again, after prospering in businesses all over northern Greece, especially in Thessaloniki. Shepherding never really took hold in this village; settled largely by refugees from Moscopolis after its second sacking at the end of the 18th century, Nimfaion's Vlachs have flourished as merchants -- an obvious continuity from the commercial Moscopolis of earlier generations. Its history is replete with wealthy merchants settled in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Egypt, Germany, and Serbia, and though assimilation into those societies has stripped the village down to a more locally-minded core, Vlach still survives (despite a strong Greek sentiment). It was here one day, while sitting at a cafe reading Nacu Zdru's Frandza Viaha, that a gentleman of the village, perhaps in his 60s, accosted me for my seeming act of defiance (reading Vlach publications offends many Greek Vlachs, a testament to the extreme sensitivity of this issue). But, as has always been my experience in Greece, we had coffee together, despite our disagreement, and we talked. Most fervent pro-Greek Vlachs are not so much pro-Greek as they are against any connection with Romania. For most, as with this gentleman, it is okay to speak Vlach, as long as you do not obstinately insist upon it, you are careful not to deny their Hellenism, and -- especially - you are prudent enough to let Vlach be Vlach and not Romanian. This is true not just in Nimfaion, but in practically every village I have visited.

Coming almost full circle around central and northern Greece, the three large towns of Edessa, Naoussa, and Verria contain many Vlachs. Those around Edessa are mostly Farsherots from once-strongly-Romanian villages like Ano Grammatiko (Grammaticuva), Patima (Patichina, now abandoned), and Kendrona (Candruva). They are all moribund today, largely because of their former alliance with Romania; many of the inhabitants, who suffered terribly at the hands of Greeks for being Vlachs, left for Romania.

**~~Papastratosels26~~** · 01-02-2019, 07:33 PM

The opposite is true of the Pindus Vlachs long settled around Verria and Naoussa. For the most part Samariniats and Avdhelliats, residents of the two towns boast strong Vlach societies, with many young people still fluent in the language. Oddly enough, while interest in the Vlachs is high in the two towns, some of the Vlach mountain villages around them are mere shadows of their former selves. Seli (Selia) was once a Farsherot settlement but today houses only a ski lodge. Its only significance these days is as the usual site for the annual gathering of the Pan-Hellenic Union of Vlach Cultural Societies. The lower village, still Vlach, is Kato Vermion. Higher up, on a very winding, paved road, lies Xirolivadho, which is faltering culturally as a Vlach village but prospering economically with money made in the towns below.

Heading toward Thessaloniki, in the flat hinterland between Edessa and Giannitsa, there is a town called Kria Vrisi. There are many Farsherots in the town, old Pleashiot families long settled there, most of whom still speak Vlach volubly. This town is interesting in that it offers a more recent perspective into the assimilation process.

Three years ago, with a rented car, we toured the Meglen Vlach villages on the Yugoslavian border, north of Thessaloniki. Wace and Thompson knew these villages well, as does Winnifrith today. And of course they were right about one thing: the Meglen Vlachs are different, not only in language but in attitudes and traditions. At first, my brother Gus and I found Meglen Vlach practically unintelligible - it is an amalgam of Vlach, Romanian, and Slavic, and it takes a while for your ear to get accustomed to the inflection and syntax (not to mention the vocabulary) before comprehension begins. After so many "regular" Vlachs, the Meglenites and their villages were a refreshing contrast. We were lured to Skra in particular, because Winnifrith had not been welcomed there; we felt challenged to penetrate the village's defenses and find out why Winnifrith had been tamed away. By speaking Greek to the shopkeeper in the misohori, but conversing discreetly with my brother in Vlach, I managed to make our arrival subtle and unthreatening, and we were welcomed. We did not enter with questions about the Vlachs, nor did we see any sense in approaching strangers in the village in Vlach, which seems anyway a bit too personal. It was their village, their territory, their "space," and as obvious intruders in a village not at all accustomed to seeing strangers, it behooved us to approach with restraint and caution. And we were rewarded for it -- we had a hard time leaving this friendly village tucked away in the low hills on the Yugoslav border. The shopkeeper, Karakostandinos Armonios, insisted we stay longer, but we were eager to move on to the next village, Archangelos.

In Wace and Tompson's day, this place was called Oshani, and today it is the largest and most prosperous of the Meglen villages. But here, too, we had to break the ice subtly as Vlach-speaking strangers before we could settle into friendly conversation. We found Skra's atmosphere more cozy. We only visited three other Meglen villages nearby, Pericleia, Koupa, and Notia, which was once a Muslim village and later converted back to Christianity. In fact, there are probably more Pontic Greeks in the village than Vlachs. Our last village in this district was not Meglen but "regular" Vlach, probably with roots in Albania. Megali Livadhia is vastly different from its neighboring villages - you'll have few or no dialectal problems here.

You will leave these villages with at least two distinct impressions: the Meglen Vlachs won't seem like Vlachs to you -- they are different, and the feeling of a common bond, often tangible in other Vlach villages, may be missing here (I found this exhilarating). In the same light, these villages help forge an awareness of the great diversity among the Vlachs. Any isolated Vlach community -- especially ours in America -- is vulnerable to cultural myopia and superciliousness; we are all burdened with the attitude that we are superior to other people, including other Vlachs. A greater awareness of the diversity of our people, which includes groups that are neither linked nor interested in linking with other Vlachs, can be a humbling experience. Indeed, who is to say who are the "real" Vlachs and who are not?
The circle is nearly complete. South of Thessaloniki, into Thessaly, perched on fabled Mt. Olympus, two villages, Kokkinoplo and Livadhi, remain, while a third, Fteri, though still standing, is abandoned. Fteri was populated in Wace and Thompson's days, left for dead by the time Winnifrith arrived, and it's not likely to be reborn any time soon, though the idea is plausible. Kokkinoplo is purely Vlach but hardly exhilarating; it has seen better days. You'll still hear the language, spoken there with a sort of lisp. But this is not a village in which to linger, unless you have a reason. Instead, the place to see in this area is Livadhi, higher up than Kokkinoplo, and large and prosperous. It seems, along with Metsovo, to be among the richest Vlach villages in Greece. First glimpsed around a hairpin turn in the mountain road, Livadhi seems to jump out at you; it is a cluster of finely built stone homes, perched on the side of the mountain. There are hotels and restaurants, and on summer evenings, the place is booming. You'll hear Vlach spoken by young and old. I met an elderly couple here who have resided in Athens for 50 years, but faithfully spend two months every summer in their village. And on the island of Skiathos, I ate at a thriving beach restaurant owned by a Livadhi family. When they found out I was Vlach, they would not let me pay. Livadhi might have something positive to say to all of us about the future of the Vlachs...
It is time to call a halt to these travels and put this article to rest. It is likely only a handful will find any interest or meaning in reading about Vlach villages; they are far too remote from our everyday lives to hold much significance. But when we take a look at villages which were once Vlach, where the language has completely vanished, where even 80-year-old women have forgotten it, or speak only a word or two, we know there is a hidden history. And because some have already paved the road for us, and scholars are now gathering 'round the campfire to discuss this most unusual and threatened ethnic group, perhaps it is fitting that our isolated community also take a look, with freshness and objectivity, at the diverse Vlach experience, so much of which has never been told.