One could say that the scale of old Greece is preserved in the general atmosphere of the country. Possibly not in cosmopolitan Syndagma Square in Athens, but certainly in the old commercial centre of the historic city, a few hundred meters away. If we move beyond the confines of the city and travel out into the countryside, we will find the atmosphere of a Greece that we all thought was lost for ever -inside an old coffee shop, between the old fridge, the wall clock and the oval- framed photographs of the owners' antecedents.
This idealised image of a Greek landscape which, with a few small changes, can be found almost anywhere in Greece, is almost as archetypal and romantic as it sounds and its description is virtually identical with that of the collective view of the quiet life of the past. Today, the emotional impact of these glimpses of traditional urban and rural Greek life, assume a special importance. Not only because this way of life has been disappearing over the past 50 years, thereby provoking waves of nostalgia, but primarily because this way of life continues to nourish the thoughts of many people, as well as the image and, in the final analysis, the identity of Greece itself.
Greece changes colour from season to season, according to which angle you see it from and moves forward in time, enriched by centuries of tradition. Beyond the tourist stereotypes and advertising slogans, Greece possesses a lively, thriving core, which adorns its path. From the Greece that once existed and then vanished, to the Greece which followed and is continuously changing, comes the Greece which combines yesterday and tomorrow, in a fresh interpretation of the land.
Nikos Vatopoulos
260 photographs |