In the same period, most of the men of Nymfaio were supporting their families by working as goldsmiths, tailors, dyers, and transporters. To begin with, they were itinerant craftsmen and artisans, and they gradually established colonies in a number of towns and kefalohoria in Macedonia and beyond, as far as Përmet in southern Albania and Thiva (Thebes) in southern Greece. Many of them, starting off mainly as goldsmiths, developed into enterprising merchants ― dealing mainly in tobacco ― not only in the Balkans but also in Constantinople, Romania, Egypt, and even Sweden. The men working away from home were gradually joined by their families, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, forming some noteworthy Nevestian colonies, some small, others quite large, in Florina, Kastoria, Monastir, Edessa, Naoussa, Veria, and Yannitsa, with the largest and most vigorous community being in Thessaloniki. In Eastern Macedonia, they met up with earlier refugees from Nymfaio. With the influx of new migrants from Nymfaio, small but vigorous and well-to-do colonies of, mainly, goldsmiths and tobacco mechants sprang up in Serres, Drama, Prossotsani, Doxato, Kavala, and Xanthi. It must have been through Kavala and Constantinople that the Nevestians forged their connections with Egypt, where they established vigorous, wealthy colonies.
The people of Klissoura already had close connections with the colonies in the Habsburg Empire and Serbia, and that was where they chose to go until the beginning of the twentieth century, establishing rich colonies in Vienna, Budapest, Dresden, Zemun, Belgrade, Pancevo, Nis, Bucharest, Jassy, and Odessa. More than 2,000 families reportedly made their way to these Klissourian colonies, a probably exaggerated figure, but certainly indicative of the magnitude of the migrations from Klissoura. Unlike the inhabitants of the other Vlach villages and settlements in this group, the Klissourians did not disperse as merchants and craftsmen to the towns and kafalohoria of Macedonia (apart from the internal migrants who went to nearby Kastoria, Amyndaio, and Ptolemaïda). During the nineteenth century, Klissoura evolved into a vigorous commercial and light industrial centre and a transit centre that rivalled Kastoria. In its heyday it may have had as many as a thousand houses, with more than a hundred shops and light industrial establishments in its commercial centre. Numerous Vlach caravans, even from other places, such as Veria and Katerini, set out from Klissoura for all the major commercial centres in the Balkans, carrying all kinds of marketable goods. Emigration halved the population between 1870 (6,400 inhabitants) and 1912 (3,000 inhabitants). Most of the Klissourians remained within the Ottoman Empire at this time. From 1890 onwards, they headed in large numbers for Constantinople and Thessaloniki. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the colony in Constantinople comprised about eighty enterprising merchants and craftsmen and a total of 300 souls. A vigorous association named Profitis Ilias was established to help organise the colony better. It was disbanded after 1908, and the most dynamic members moved mainly to Thessaloniki, where the old Klissourian colony played a leading role in the affairs of the Greek Orthodox community. In 1907, the Klissourians set up the Ayios Markos Association.
A smaller group, mainly of tobacco merchants, settled in Kavala at this time.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Blatsiots (from Vlasti), whether descended from the Vlach refugees of 1769 onwards or from Greek-speakers living in Vlasti, continued to maintain their contact with, and to emigrate to, the colonies in the Habsburg Empire, the Danubian Principalities, and Serbia, accompanying the Vlach or Grek caravans heading north across the Danube. The colonies which they established in the towns in Eastern Macedonia in the first half of the nineteenth century grew considerably between the 1860s and the beginning of the twentieth century. During this latter period, those who left Vlasti were migrants, not fugitives, and were members of the merchant and light industrial class, not transhumant stockbreeders.
Thus, most of the Blatsiots who went to Thessaloniki, Serres, Kavala, Drama, Constantinople, Egypt, and Romania at this time had almost forgotten the Vlach language.
Originally Posted by Kaspias
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