Ermoupoli Town Hall, designed by Ernst Ziller, in historic Ermoupoli, Syros, on Sunday 8 August 2021. Photo: Giakolio/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Historic Ermoupoli at 200: Hidden Corners of Syros’ Past

by · Greek City Times

Historic Ermoupoli marks 200 years since it took its name in 1826, and a local festival chief has picked the places that tell its story.

This year the international animation festival had an extra reason to celebrate. Ermoupoli, the capital of Syros, has hosted it for 19 years.

For its president, lawyer Vasilis K. Karamitsanis, Syros began as a teenage love during family summer holidays. It became a lifelong bond when he and his colleague Maria Anestopoulou chose the island as the home of Animasyros.

Today Anestopoulou serves as the festival’s artistic director.

Read more: Inside Syros’ 162-Year-Old Apollo Theatre, Inspired by La Scala

Why historic Ermoupoli stands apart

Festival events, held with the Municipality of Syros-Ermoupoli, honoured the 1826 naming. Karamitsanis also named the landmarks that best explain the past and present of historic Ermoupoli.

Its story, along with its well-preserved mansions, still lives in every building and laneway. The town offers a taste of how much more beautiful other Greek towns could be. However, unchecked development spoiled many of them.

Karamitsanis also explained what makes the capital of Syros unique.

“There is no other town in the country with this architectural structure and its undisturbed character. We had very beautiful towns, including the capital, which lost much of their identity with the land-for-apartments system and the rapid building of the 1960s and ’70s.”Vasilis K. Karamitsanis, Animasyros president

By contrast, he said, the state protects historic Ermoupoli. Animasyros learned this first-hand while creating Animasyros Espace. The new venue behind the Metropolis will also host artist residencies.

Ziller’s Town Hall and an El Greco icon

At first, Karamitsanis found it hard to single out corners of the town, “because the whole of it is a monument.”

Still, he chose “the supremely beautiful right atrium of the Town Hall with its mosaic.” The landmark building is the work of Ernst Ziller.

Inside, outside the office of the Aegean prosecutor, stands a sculpture of the festival mascot, Animaspyros. Illustrator, comic creator and painter Petros Christoulias made it. For the anniversary, the mascot turned into the god Hermes and flew over historic Ermoupoli.

Karamitsanis recommends a tour of the churches of historic Ermoupoli, which he called “a very fine chronology of its evolution.” The more lavish they are, the closer the town stood to its economic peak. Humbler churches mark times of decline.

In particular, he highlights the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin. Its icon in liturgical use is a work by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known as El Greco. Refugees from Psara brought it to Syros.

A new museum in an old mansion

Any journey back in time in historic Ermoupoli also calls for a visit to the new Historical Museum of Ermoupoli. It sits in the former Rethymnis mansion.

State funding paid for it. Even so, Karamitsanis pointed out that the museum is an initiative of the Syros branch of the Lyceum of Greek Women. He described the branch as the second most important after Athens, based in “an excellent building.”

Inside, the exhibition presents the interior of an old Syros home “in a very fine way.” He credited the curatorial work of Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou, a newcomer from Thessaloniki. Chatzigrigoriou works to preserve the heritage of the island.

Resistance, famine and the Statue of Victory

Many visitors may walk past a monument with powerful symbolism. The Statue of Victory stands at the end of Eleftheriou Venizelou Street, on the coastal road of historic Ermoupoli.

“Syros is one of the few islands this small that had a National Resistance,” Karamitsanis said. During the Occupation, he added, the island lived through a famine like the one in Athens.

Residents died of hunger because wheat and other basic goods ran short. So resistance was, quite literally, a matter of survival.

Syros and the first mixed bathing in Greece

Finally, the trip into the past of Syros leads to the sea. Like the whole island, it suits every season. Even when the weather rules out a swim, the waterfront mansions reward visitors.

Here, Karamitsanis suggests the swimming platform at Asteria. It is where “shortly before the Second World War, the first mixed bathing in the country was allowed.” Specifically, men and women could swim at the same beach, in swimsuits rather than clothes.

Women’s rights became a topic of debate in Hermoupolis very early. According to Karamitsanis, Syros was where the need for two years of compulsory schooling for women was first discussed.

That progressive spirit spread to leisure as well. Mixed bathing started in France, and close ties with France helped it reach historic Ermoupoli before anywhere else in Greece.

Today the Asteria platform blends “everyday lifestyle and understated cosmopolitanism” with “a piece of hidden history,” Karamitsanis said. When a ship passes, its waves sweep away your towel, your shoes and everything else.

“It is a very beautiful place,” he concluded.

Source: travel.gr

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