#travel to #greece - #kavala & #xanthi

KAVALA, XANTHI and the Greek Muslim community

The narrow streets of the old Panagia seemed partially deserted - the only permanent and omnipresent inhabitants were the numerous cats... cars were sometimes cruising the stone labyrinth of the old town built around the walls of the Acropolis of KAVALA - the settlement was originally founded in 760 B.C. by the Ancient Greeks, and was afterwards dominated by the Romans, Byzantines and the Ottomans, who conquered the city named Neapolis in 1391.

This is an ageless, timeless place taken right from the writings of the past… Perhaps from Halide Edib Adıvar novels, from the old Istanbul, or how it'scalled here, Costantinopoli… an illustration of what the entire Balkan region used to look like - now there's only Thrace, the Bulgarian Plovdiv, Koprivshitsa, and small villages at the border between Greece and Turkey that remind one of those times...

The Ottoman houses in Kavala and Xanthi (as I was to see) have been restored, new ones have been built in a similar manner - what makes the Acropoli an homogenous and unique spot...

A fascinating scenery, the view of the fortress, the Aegean Sea to complete the panorama, the bay of the new town lies at my feet… the ferry, the fishing boats, the city lights… As one climbs down the Acropolis hill there's an Orthodox church and a neoclassical building (now a high school), which witnessed the tortures of Greek patriots by the Bulgarian Ohrana during the fascist occupation.

But I won't return to the new town - not just yet; I search for the residence of Mohammad Ali and find another Ottoman work of art, the Halil Bey Mosque, right next to the ruins of an orthodox church dating back to the Early Christian period of Neapolis… The narrow steep road leads the traveler to the Medieval fortress and promises an even more impressive view of the old city peninsula and the surroundings… no matter if day or night.

From the top, the panorama is dominated by the admirable KAMARES, the mighty aqueduct bequeathed by Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent and Ibrahim Paşa, who have watched over the town, endowing it with the aqueduct and other constructions that bore witness to the most flourishing Ottoman era. It's a pity that the mosques outside Panagia are no longer visible...

The Ottoman era has transformed the entire region, however there are no more Muslims living in Kavala - there are Greeks with Muslim ancestors from Pontos, through; most them arrived to these lands in 1923 (if not even before), as a consequence of the population exchange agreed between Atatürk’s Turkey and Venizelos’ Greece.

The Greek Muslim community can be found Eastern from Kavala, in Xanthi, Komotini and the other small villages of Eastern Thrace, and lives a normal and peaceful existence, untouched by the events of 1923, says a representative of the Imaret Establishment in Kavala.

This edifice, Imaret, has been owned by the state of Egypt ever since the Nasser era and was turned in 2005 into a five-star-boutique hotel by the Greek family who is renting the facility. The building dates back to 1812 and was the gift of the Ottoman governor of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Paşa, to his home city - it functioned as a Vakıf, an establishment of education (medrese, mescit, dorms of the students etc.) and a soup kitchen until 1902, and the soup kitchen until 1912.

I continued asking about the Muslim community in North-Eastern Greece. They are called Pomaks (Pomakos / Pomaklar) - originally Slavic people, Bulgarians, who became Muslims during the Ottoman period. They were exempt from the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, a result of the Lausanne Treaty, the document that defined the borders of modern Turkey. The Pomaks population is now estimated to be around 50.000.
Another Muslim community is the one called Vallahades, late Ottoman Empire converts to Islam, which has retained more of the Greek cultural aspects and has continued to speak Greek though, unlike other Greek converts, that adopted the Turkish language and culture and assimilated into Ottoman society. The Vallahades were deported to Turkey during the population exchanges in the 1920s - the only criterion being the religion, and not the ethnicity.

The issue interests me more and more and speaking to the Imaret guide and the PR-responsible I find out about the MOHA research centre; I contact one of the representatives of the foundation and ask for more information about this almost secluded minority that I will encounter in XANTHI.

XANTHI - the sublime ottoman houses in the old town, the 2 mosques, the Turkish speaking locals everywhere, the head-piece wearing women sending their kids to the Koran school on Friday afternoons - it's an enchanting town, where the influence of the past is even more visible.

I asked some orthodox Greeks about their Muslim fellow citizens - the first thing they asked me was: how do they feel - Greek or Turkish? It sounds like a typical question, but there's a lot it entails... One of my Greek interlocutors had heard that Turkey is helping the Greek Muslim community - financially. That would explain the 2 recently renovated mosques in Xanthi... Considering Turkey has done the same for the Muslims in Bosnia and Albania, the aspect does not surprise me.

In Xanthi the Orthodox live in apparent harmony with the Muslims - who are, after all, just as Greek as the Orthodox. I heard teenagers in the Xanthi main square mixing Greek with Turkish, just like Turks in Germany mix Turkish with German - in both cases, totally bilingual communities.

I spoke to different people about the Muslim community - they all said that belief is a personal matter. The ethical criterion seems to have triumphed over the the religious one - the Pomakos are a part of the Greek society.

Thrace is indeed a whole different world - one in which the past managed to keep up with the present and become a part of the modern era…

Kavala as well as Xanthi - they are both situated at the confluence of the old and the new; the intertwining of past and present is unique... And life, with its slow Mediterranean tempo is omnipresent - colorful streets, innumerable inviting taverns, Bougatsa bakeries, halva, kuruyemiş and pastry shops, coffee-shops, then bars/cafes/lounges open all day, the enchanting music inside, people everywhere (reminding me if the streets in Istanbul) - a mosaic, a microcosm far away from the maddening crowd...