Hope of rebirth from the ruins

I doubt there is a single person who has visited Monodendri, one of the most beautiful villages of Zagori in northwestern Greece, and hasn’t tried the flour pie at the taverna Pita tis Kikitsas. Well, right next to this famous eatery, there is a ruin that has been there for decades. It is a crumbling old stone building, whose heirs could never agree to either restore it or sell it so someone else could breathe new life into it.

The same sad sights can be seen just about everywhere in Greece. “It shows the weakness of our nation. To not be able to agree among ourselves, even within a single family, about what is in our interest,” Parliament Speaker Kostas Tasoulas said years ago in a speech in Tzoumerka. 

I read a few days ago in Kathimerini, in a report by Giorgos Lialios, that this summer the Environment Ministry will table for consultation a new legislative proposal according to which buildings that have been abandoned and uninhabited for a period of more than 15 years will be transferred to the local municipality with fast-track procedures.

The aim of the bill is for collapsed buildings to be restored with funding from a real estate company and then either be sold to their owners, if they are interested, or to someone else. I believe that it is a good proposal that – as long as transparency is ensured in the management of the local government and no property-grabbing takes place – will improve the image of many regions and breathe new life into old settlements.

I think the Greek National Tourism Organization’s decision in the 1970s and 80s to take over and renovate old mansions and houses of particular architectural interest and return them to their owners to rent had more or less the same rationale. It created the first small hotels and bed-and-breakfasts around the country, and especially in traditional settlements, that were particularly attractive for tourists looking for something different.