A brave new world - Nea Hora (Νέα Χώρα Χανίων)

On a recent walk through the old town of Hania, I came across a part of the Venetian wall encircling the town which is connected with refugee history. The long black markings on this part of the wall, on the western side near the outskirts the old town, approaching the suburb of Nea Hora, were made by the iron hooks that were nailed into the wall for the makeshift accommodation that housed the refugees from the 1922 population exchange. This is where the refugees set up temporary homes, camping out in this area until they were allotted land where they could build a home and live a semi-subsistence lifestyle by planting gardens.

A new world awaited the Asia Minor refugees in Crete. Most of them had never travelled to Greece before, having lived all their lives in areas of what is now modern-day Turkey. The refugees' first home by the wall must have been very cold, as the wall faces the sea. With the current migration crisis being played out in Europe - paying attention in particular to its suddenness - we begin to understand how refugees are forced to restart their lives literally from ground zero. For the repatriation plan of those new arrivals to be sustainable, the refugees had to be accommodated immediately and without limitations, unlike the case in the present migration crisis.

The suburb of Nea Hora, meaning the 'new town', was named as such since it was the first suburb to be built outside the walls on the western side of the town. It was established some time during the Ottoman period after the mid-1800s, when the Cretan Muslims (Τουρκοκρητικοί - Tourkokritiki) living on the island came here to seek refuge from the insurgencies taking place in various parts of the island after the Greek revolution in 1821. The Tourkokritiki constituted the first wave of refugees to the area. Crete remained under Ottoman rule for the longest period out of all the Greek territories, until the end of the 19th century. After this, it became an independent state and finally joined Greece proper in 1913.

It is not difficult to imagine how Nea Hora must have looked when the Muslims came to live in the area in the mid-1800s: imagine an area completely undeveloped, with sandy soil, cold damp winters and strong winds blowing in from the sea. It must have felt quite desolate. It was also the outpost for the start of the industrial sector of the town. Located near the beach area was the former ABEA soap-making factory, whose chimneys are still standing (a school is now located on the former factory grounds: see http://www.organicallycooked.com/2011/12/soap.html). ABEA was the first industrial unit in the whole of Crete, built beside the Jewish cemetery outside the city boundaries of the time by a French scientist called Jules Deiss in 1889. The beach of Nea Hora was also used by the people known as the 'Halikoutides' in Hania as part of their May Day celebrations: "... a 'lumpen' Muslim community, ... the local African slave and ex-slave population, the so-called Halikoutides... were a specific ethnic group of the Cretan population, living on the margins of society and mainly employed in despised jobs, such as porters, rowers etc." (see: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/381861/1.hasCoversheetVersion/Varouhakis%20PhD%20final%20thesis%20(Sept%202015)%20WITHOUT%20SIGN.pdf ).

But by 1923, nearly all the Muslims had gone*, due to a forced migration process under the terms stipulated by the Treaty of Lausanne, when the population exchange between Turkey and Greece took place. Once the Muslims left, a lot of land was suddenly freed up to be put to use for a new purpose. With the area being emptied out by this turn of events, Nea Hora became a natural settlement area for the Greek refugees from Asia Minor who were distributed in various parts of the country, including Crete. Nea Hora then began to take shape under the planning conditions of the time for the relocation of the Greek refugees.

The architecture of Nea Hora shows the origins of the early residents. The area was built up from refugees. (Click here for more photos)

It was not until the war that coastal urban areas were regarded in a more favourable light in Crete, when tourism overtook the economy of the region. Before tourism, the sandy coastal soils were regarded as inhospitable. But a plot of land - any land - was seen - and in many ways is still seen - as an easy answer to the imminent problem of housing and feeding a family. A plot of land is able to provide a roof over one's head and a sustainable way to keep food costs low since the home owner can grow some fruit and vegetables and keep hens and rabbits.

The architecture of Nea Hora alludes to the refugee origins of its early residents. From its present look, what can be inferred is that small bungalow-type houses were built by the refugees, with small gardens where they could plant vegetables and keep domesticated animals. As the town's residents grew, rooms would be added onto the houses, to provide a private living arrangement for the families of the children of the refugees. And as the town became wealthier, these small houses on the small plots of land were turned into apartment blocks, initially for family use: extended families would own the whole apartment block. Nea Hora is now the most densely populated suburb of Hania. Sustainable housing systems for extended families is still the norm in Greece, although this has meant a loss of land for garden plots with the increase in population.

Nea Hora, with a view of Lazaretta islet (right) and Thodorou island (centre) (click here for more photos)

Nea Hora is now a very popular place to go for a drink or a meal among locals and tourists, especially in the summertime. The beachfront has all the attractions of a summer resort: a family-friendly beach, plenty of cafes and restaurants, a range of hotels and rooms to let, and a very pretty marina. The streets behind the beach are worth exploring for signs of the history of the area. In the summertime, Nea Hora never fails to please, mixing old world charm with modern comforts. Fish is the most popular item on the menus of the restaurants in the region.

Nea Hora is now an inner city beachside resort visited by locals and tourists.
(Click here for more photos)

Every Thursday, a farmer's market takes place in Nea Hora, together with a street market full of vendors of all sorts. The farmer's market is also a popular meeting place for the locals, giving a community feel to the region. This again aids in the sustainability of the region, making Nea Hora feel like a picturesque urban village.

The purpose of my visit through Nea Hora was to get acquainted with the laiki (street market) of the area.
(Click here for more photos)

The western side of the moat where the Venetian walls are located marks the boundary between Nea Hora and the centre of Hania. This is also where the old Xenia hotel used to be located, sitting on top of the archaeologically and architecturally significant Venetian walls. Its installations lent a very cosmopolitan feel to the area. It was demolished relatively recently (about a decade ago) in order to clear away the historically important area of modern haphazardly erected unlicensed constructions, to allow for the better protection of the town's Venetian walls.

Despite the many apartment blocks lining the coastal area of Nea Hora, its humble origins are still highly visible in the narrow streets of the suburb. Nea Hora remains a very quiet and pleasant part of the town.

Learn more about Nea Hora: "Urban reconstruction of the district of Nea Chora in Chania" in this link:
dias.library.tuc.gr/view/manf/24453 - which leads to a download of a file (in Greek).

*Not all the Muslim population of Crete left the island. The last Muslim from this period to die in Hania was in 1967. Salis, as he was known, was a Sudanese who was loved very much by the local community and well known for his benevolence. To avoid forced emigration, he took on English citizenship, which caused him some problems during the Nazi period. He is buried in Hania in the town's Christian cemetery as a sign of the great respect that he was shown by the citizens. See: http://kritigr.gr/tag/%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%AE%CF%82/
For more information about the Jewish cemetery, see http://www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/the-recent-exhumation-of-fifteen-burials-from-the-former-jewish-cemetery-of-hania/

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.
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Family feud and the Iggleza

When Greeks fight among themselves, it's often about in-family issues. This is of course not the image projected abroad about the Greek family. But Greeks do fight quite a lot among their own kin. What is there to fight about in a family? Property rights. It's always been like this. And if you search deep enough, you will find a property-fuelled family feud in every Greek family. (People that claim they don't have one have either forgotten it, or are ignoring it, or possibly don't realise that they have been duped.)

The Iggleza* in me tells me that if I can prove that something is mine, then it's mine, but if I can't prove that something is mine - even though I may believe that it is - then I must never think of it as mine. But that's just me, and I'm an Iggleza. I was taught to think like this by my family... who raised me in New Zealand... where I was educated... to think like that. What is known in English as 'common law' is known in Greek as 'Αγγλικό δίκαιο' - literally, 'English justice'.

There's a heap of Greek land and property out there that I would like to lay claim to. But nothing is in my name, and more importantly, nothing is my parents' names either. But I know that it was rightfully mine. But I aslo know that I will not be able to claim this property because I don't have any documentation for it. I like to know what is mine, and I don't mind sharing it. But that does not extend to land and property. I'm an Eggleza, and my home is my castle, not a hotel. So if land or property is not mine and mine alone, then I don't want to have anything to do with it.

My husband Dimitri (an only child) has similar views. His parents were both born in the same village, which means that somewhere in that village, there were at least two family homes that he could have inherited something from. Instead, he got, in his words, από τα τρία το μακρύτερο ('the longest of the three', ie nothing). He has never asked for anything that he knew he couldn't prove to be his, not even that room in his father's home, where he used to store his tools for working in the fields, which had been 'promised' to him - ie a spoken word, with no documents finalising anything:

- Hi Uncle (he said, speaking on the phone to one of his father's five siblings), the key doesn't seem to be working for the door where I keep my tools.
- I changed it.
- You changed it?
- Yeah.
- Er, why?
- How am I supposed to know if you gonna steal anything of mine?
(gulp)
- Can I get my tools out?
- Yeah.
- How?
- When I come over, I'll take them out for you.

That particular uncle lived in Ohio at the time (yes, that Ohio - we aint got no Ohio in Crete). Eventually, my husband got his tools out of the room of his paternal family home, and never entered that house again. He passes the house every time he goes to his parents' village (we live only 10 kilometres from it) when he goes to his olive field. Not once has he shown bitterness towards his uncle who now lives here with his wife. They don't live in the paternal family home - their house was made with US dollars, somewhere in Hania. When you enter it, you think you're somewhere in Ohio (according to my idea of an American home, influenced by the glossy magazines of yesteryear which I used to browse through). There's a lot of glass in it, explained by the fact that they never had children.

Initially, Dimitri did feel some bitterness about this situation because he is the only offspring of those six siblings that never owned a house in the village. He has inherited many patches of land, but there is not a single piece of land - despite some patches being very big, in Cretan terms - that can legally be used to build a house on. He ended up having to buy land to build on. After 35 years of renting, he felt a sense of relief that one can only sense when they never lived in a home of their own. My parents also rented a home, but not for 35 years. I too have rented, but only for 3-4 years. 35 is quite a different story, especially when, while you are building a home, your father suddenly dies and leaves you with all the debts involved in the building costs, as well as a beat-up taxi that Dimitri almost torched (his mother stopped him) because it was causing him so many problems. Dimitri ended up selling a piece of the land where the house was built, which he and his parents had bought, in order to continue to build the home we now live in, making our garden smaller (I often refer to the neighbour's house as the chicken coop that never was). I was lucky, Dimitri once told me. I sold off one third of that piece of land for the same price that I paid for the whole piece. That's what EU entry brought - a higher perceived value of a piece of land that, up until Dimitri bought it, was seen as less valuable, and there was considerable difficulty in selling it (that's another equally juicy story, but for another time).

Since building his own home, and later creating a family that he is proud of showing off, he easily forgets his past troubles with his kin. But every once in a while, something happens, a word is spoken, and the shit hits the fan. This time, it hit via his latest pet project, the garden he created in one of his maternally-inherited fields, after I posted some photos of it on facebook:

our main garden has moved to one of our village fields this year
Posted by Maria Verivaki on Saturday, 22 August 2015

A lot of people use facebook to spy on others. I am aware of this, but I am also a long-time user of facebook and I generally know how to protect myself. I use the rules of the Iggleza to know where I stand. In this case, I know that I cannot make any comment on this situation because this field in the countryside belongs to my husband, not to me, and even though it is fully registered with the authorities under his name and we can also pass it on legally to our children, the family feud in question is not my concern. I will simply be one of the beneficiaries. If I didn't care, I would not even bother to learn the story behind a comment that appeared on the post.

On this particular occasion, I have lived through the story over the years, so I cannot claim to be a passive observer. I know what hurt and anger this has caused over the short period that the family feud developed. Like all Greek tragedies, it was avoidable. Like most Greek tragedies, there are solutions. It's all got to do with negotiation, a term rarely linked to any meaning in Greece. And so it goes on - but it can stop: if only both parties decide to negotiate. (And eventually, I believe that they will.)

In order to understand how this kind of issue can arise, you have to understand that the idea of καταπάτηση (literally, stepping onto someone else's land) is as old as the hills in Greece. Land is owned by someone or perhaps a family. The plot is divided among the inheritors once the original owner dies. This is most often the children, but it can also be other members of a family, in the case of those landowners who did not have children of their own. It is rare for documents to exist in these kinds of dealings; they are all done informally, mainly verbally, and if there is proof of ownership (ie documentation) in someone's possession, it probably didn't go through legal channels, but was simply written up between the parties. In some cases, one side could not even read it because they were illiterate. People have killed each other over land ownership. It was easy back then to pull the wool over another person's eyes.

Nowadays, purchases of land all require documentation because nowadays all land must be registered. But amongst villagers, the old transaction method for buying/selling land can still be used because not all land is registered. In the case of unregistered land, siblings, cousins, and others may own a piece of land that borders another sibling's, cousin's or other's piece. When one party wishes to sell (or to buy), they often inform the neighbour who may wish to buy it from (or sell it to) them in order to extend the land under their ownership (or get rid of it for monetary gain, because they no longer have any need for the land).

The original land in question was part of a bigger plot that was owned by... was it Dimitri's maternal grandfather, or his maternal grandmother? At any rate, it was divided in two: the 'upper' part (further away from the main village road) was given to the son (Dimitri's uncle), and the 'lower' part (close to the main village road) was given to the daughter, my mother-in-law, Dimitri's mother. (There were other children too, but they all died in infancy and one was killed in WW2 by being shot in the back by a Nazi while he was sitting in the local cafeneio. His father - Dimitri's grandfather - had been killed by execution only a short while before that.) The field was all planted with olive trees, and the upper part still is. Dimitri and his mother (his father had died by then) removed the olive trees form their part (the lower part) and planted orange trees instead.

This is not the only field that was passed on to my husband. Due to the piecemeal nature of land ownership in Crete, some patches of land that a person owns may never be used. You simply can't maintain everything you own when you end up with so many pieces here and there. So when Dimitri's uncle (the owner of the upper part) asked him if Dimitri would 'sell' another patch of land under Dimitri's ownership with just 7 olive trees on it, so that the uncle could extend his own 7-olive-tree patch (he would then have a total of 14 trees on one piece of land), Dimitri obliged, by being given a similar number of trees from the upper part, at the point where the upper and lower parts bordered each other. This seemed to be a fair deal on both sides, and was accepted by the uncle's children, Dimitri's cousins. The trees that Dimitri acquired in exchange for the trees that he handed over were planted in two πλάτες (singular: πλάτη) which we could translate as 'terraces' for the purposes of this post. Dimitri says that his uncle told him to take two terraces.

Now, here is where the παραξήγηση (misunderstanding) lies: what constitutes a terrace of trees? Before I explain that one, I have to explain why we put up a fence around our piece of land, despite the fact that no other piece of land in the area has a fence that rings right round the field. The Iggleza in me likes fences: fences make good neighbours. Most Cretans will not put up a border around their land patches, claiming high costs (yes, it is expensive). The most that anyone will do if they want to put up a fence is to place some chicken wire around their land supported by loosely planted posts. Chicken wire is flexible, it can break, it can be torn by force, etc, etc. Posts can also be 'transplanted'. The reason why we decided to put up a proper fence around the property is because Dimitri decided that he would like to own more fruit trees, and the olive-turned-orange grove was the perfect place to plant those trees. These trees have now borne fruit - apart from watermelon in the summer and bananas and apples int eh winter, we don't buy any fruit. Coupled with our vegetable garden (I don't buy vegetables except for leeks because we don't plant them), we save a lot of money by growing our own fruit and veg.

So when Dimitri decided to build a fence around his property, he had to work out the borders. We actually do have documentation showing proof of ownership (and we think the cousin does too, but we don't know for sure, because we don't ask other people about their business - the Iggleza in me just minds her own business - and people don't offer to tell you either), but a piece of paper (or even  a GIS screenshot) just gives you the theory. You need to see how borders are actually marked in order to understand how land is claimed. Some people use a pile of stones. Others have built stones to resemble a wall. Other plant a stake in the ground, others use specific trees as markers. There is also the method described above, with chicken wire.

But all the above-mentioned forms of demarcation are subject to 'changes'. Dimitri has related many funny incidents that he has seen over the years, of 'moving borders' (which give way to the καταπάτηση described above). On another piece of land, he noticed that another uncle had planted baby olive trees right against the chicken wire on the uncle's side of the fence. As the trees grew, the chicken wire bent, and... lo and behold, his uncle's field grew larger, because he kept moving the chicken wire to accommodate the trees. Being the nice guy he is, Dimitri didn't say anything to the uncle. He asked his cousin to deal with the situation, and to this day, he has no problem with the cousin in question. When Dimitri wasn't using one of his fields, he drove to it one day to find it planted with broad beans. Knowing that the broad beans needed to be watered, he hid his car one day and waited to pounce on the planter - who turned out to be none other than his uncle. And so on, and so forth. Every Greek has a funny story to tell about cases of καταπάτηση.

Getting back to our issue: what constitutes a terrace of trees? He had told his cousin at various times that he was thinking about placing a fence around the land. There was no question that he owned two terraces of trees. By terrace, Dimitri took that as meaning something resembling a step on a staircase. The upper part of the field is located on a slight gradient, which requires the land where olive trees are planted to resemble a staircase, for ease of harvesting the olives. So when he marked out where to place the fence, he used the end of the staircase as the point where the border would be placed; in other words, the border was located at the point where the next step would start.

Sounds simple. So where's the catch? According to his cousin, the word πλάτη (terrace) means something else. It's not defined by the place where one row ends and another begins. It's defined by... I couldn't understand that one. At any rate, her meaning of the word gives the idea that that we have committed the ultimate land crime: καταπάτηση. We are transgressors! How much land have we stolen? Apparently, it's 25 metres (the length of the border, by 1m (the width believed by the cousin to have been transgressed), divided by 2 because on one side of the field, we have not transgressed. In other words, we are talking about a triangle of land totalling a 12.5 square metres. Rather than argue with his cousins about the meaning of the word πλάτη, my husband (in close consultation with the preceding owner of the land - his mother), decided to accept the transgression, which was caused not just by our not understanding her definition of πλάτη, but also because we pulled a straight line from one end to the other. In other words, it was also due to a mistake.

You may wonder why Dimitri didn't warn his cousin that a fence was going to go up. I want you right this minute to pretend that Zoe Konstantopoulou is his cousin. By the time she decides what the accurate definition of πλάτη is, πολλοί γαϊδάροι θα έχουνε ψοφήσει, as my mother used to say (literally, 'many donkeys will have died'; figuratively, we can't waste time waiting); we didn't have the luxury of so much time. One could say we pulled a fast one over her, but was that really our intention? We had told her we were intending to build a fence around our property, and she could have come to see it for herself... if only she actually lived here (she lives elsewhere in Greece). So many Greek landowners live far away from their land, and they treat the land as if they own it, despite not having any documentation for it. They are just waiting for a chance to sell it at a high price. The owner of another field next to ours lives in Australia. He hires local help to maintain his olive grove, and (I think) he gets some of the olive oil produced from the harvest sent to him in Australia, but he too hasn't fenced his field. Why he hasn't done this, I cannot answer. It's just very provocative to think that you can be an absentee landowner and expect everyone to keep off your land just because it isn't theirs. That's not the way the real world works. That's why we put up a fence around our orange orchard: there were apricots on the tree one day, and the next day there weren't.

The cousin discovered that the fence had been put up when she came one day to visit her field. It just happened to be the day that the builder was there. So the deed was almost done. I suppose she came to see the end result. While the builder was laying the initial foundations for the retaining wall that was going to support the πλάτη, he called my husband:

- Hi Dimitri.
- Hi Yani. How's the building going?
- It was going fine until a few minutes ago.
- Why? What's wrong?
- Do you know where I am?
- You're not at the field?
- No.
(speechless)
- You're not in the hospital? (Dimitri was terrified that the builder had had an accident.)
- No.
- The where the bloody hell are you?
- I'm at the police station. Someone's reported you for building without a licence. 

The builder was eventually released without any other incident taking place, and Dimitri was also not bothered by anyone else about this incident. Planning permission states that any time when concrete is poured onto land, a licence must be requested to do this. We never requested a licence. We knew that a licence was required but we decided to risk it. It was considered an archaic law and not always followed to the letter. When it was ascertained that we were building a fence and not a house, and the documentation for land ownership was shown, the matter was dropped. We did not request a licence because it would have cost 1,500 euro to get one (!) and we would have to wait for at least 6 months (more likely longer) till it was issued (!!), and the construction budget was calculated to at least 10,000 euro (!!!) - the fence cost us close to 15,000 euro in the final count. Sometimes you do what you gotta do.

Who might have 'planted' us to the police? We have our suspicions. Dimitri was friendly with another builder who sometimes did odd jobs for him. When he saw someone else doing building work on our land, he ----. I was going to say he got jealous. That fence looked big, and expensive, and above all, nice. The other builder had lost his privileged position with my husband: there were better builders out there, after all.

Since we accepted the transgression that we had stepped on someone's land, even if by accident and unintentionally, we tried to make up for it by offering trees from another piece of land that bordered with theirs. After some humming and hawing, the matter was left to lie. The outcome of that was - and here the feud begins - that the families cut ties with one another after being as thick as thieves for nearly 60 years. All for the sake of 12.5 square metres of land that no one is doing anything with (we haven't planted anything in that disputed piece of land - it just supports the wall). That facebook comment was the first time in - how many years? - that the transgression has resurfaced. Via the Iggleza who should not have anything to do with the matter - because both the land and the transgression do not belong to her.

I showed the comment to my husband. I showed the comment to our children. They in turn took a laptop downstairs to the grandmother and showed it all to her too. She kept a cool disposition throughout the explanations of what had taken place. I expect that she will eventually hold the key to the resolution of this crisis. She's 91, and she has seen many more serious crises in her life. This one will be child's play for her. I am sure it will be played out soon. Let's wait and see.

In the meantime, I am enjoying the fruits of our labours on that field. We have all contributed to our new garden. My 13 and 14 year old children pulled out a wheelbarrow full of rocks from each hole that was dug in that land and is now growing a tomato or pepper plant in it. We have oranges, peach, nectarine, fig, mango, lychee, plum, lemon trees which gives us a wide variety of fruit. We grew a zillion green beans on it this year, as well as peppers, tomatos, corn, zucchini and cucumber. The field gives my husband a chance to get away from suburbia. By cajoling the children to come and help him with the field work, they have subconsciously learnt how to be farmers. More importantly, they have attached themselves to the land. If you don't live near your land, you will be unable to nurture a relationship with it, except as a memory. I have no intention of letting anyone take that joy away from my family. Accusations are one thing, sabotaging our daily life with other people's misery is quite another, in this rather selfish world that we are all living in.

*** *** ***

*Iggleza = Cretan pronunciation of Engleza (Εγγλέζα); - literally, 'English woman'; figuratively, 'someone who thinks like an English person', a term Greeks often use to describe me (ie when they think I am not acting/thinking like a 'real' Greek). 

Έλα απόψε, σαν Εγγλέζα, φως μου να φερθείς (1940)

Έλα απόψε, σαν Εγγλέζα, φως μου να φερθείς,  Come tonight, like an English woman, be my light
στις οχτώμιση το βράδυ, ραντεβού να `ρθεις, at eight thirty in the evening, come to see me on a date
Στο στενόμακρο δρομάκι, τ’ ανηφορικό, To the long and narrow path, the steep one,
θα σε περιμένω να `ρθεις, κάτι να σου πω, I will be waiting for you, to tell you something
Θέλω πια να σου μιλήσω, σκέτα, παστρικά, I just want to talk to you, nice and neat,
όλα της καρδιάς μου, να σου πω τα μυστικά, everything in my heart, to tell you my secrets

The reference to the time (8.30) is what differentiates the Greek from the English woman. The English woman will be on time.

On another note, the English accent continues to mesmerize Greeks. You may be speaking a heap of BS, but they just love to hear that accent. It's like listening to the Queen and they think she is speaking to them.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Inheritance (Κληρονομιά)

Δηλώστε και σώστε περιουσία και καταθέσεις - Τελευταίος συμβιβασμός με την Εφορία για "μάυρα" εισδήματα, so reads today's front page headline on ToVima's Sunday paper edition today; for good or for bad, Greece is changing, forever... 

I once inherited some money after the death of one of my mother's uncles. He had no children, his wife had a child from a previous marriage, and when he died, he left behind a very old dilapidated house (he lived in it till his death) to be divided among his next of kin. His wife had died before him, so when he died, her son (from a previous marriage) inherited her 50% share of the property, while his immediate next of kin was awarded the remaining 50%. As he was my mother's uncle, and the last of his brothers and sisters to pass away, the children of his siblings inherited this share of the house. Each one had between two and four children, so that the money was further subdivided. My mother's sister and brothers were all given their share, but since my mother had passed away, her share was divided among her children I received the princely sum of 50,000 drachmas (~€150). I had recently moved into my own home, and needed some furniture, which is where that money went. other than that, all my inheritance is tied up with unregistered land.

 

 Our orange grove at Ahladolakko ('pear hole'): an uneven strip of land with small trees bordered by a road and surrounded by olive groves, in the middle of a growing neighbourhood; despite the fact that the area has been built up recently (even swimming pools have sprouted on the foothills of the Lefka Ori), building regulations do not permit us to build on it because our field is smaller than 2 hectares. 

In the past, the trading of land parcels (with no buildings on them) in Crete (and most of rural Greece, I presume) was conducted orally, sometimes accompanied by a written note that stated where a piece of land was situated and who it neighboured. This is still done today on an informal basis concerning small land parcels that have still not been reigistered with the state. The agreement was deemed the 'contract'. For the most part, written contracts did not exist. To formalise ownership of property and land, the Greek government created the Enthniko Ktimatologio (the Hellenic Cadastre), the Greek Property Registry. Dates have been established for each area or alphabetically according to the owner's name (where there is a high population) for owners to register their land and property. If a property isn't registered, the owner runs the risk of not being able to sell it legally, and it may even be confiscated by the state.

 Our orange grove at Xiloporta ('wooden door'): the small dense-looking patch of land located across from the building with the white-bordered concrete roof (a fruit packing station), on the left-hand side of the dirt road (which it borders), running into the groves. Although it is within the building zone, the total land area is smaller than where we live now; the view we would have from the entrance to a potential home there (see photograph below) is not exactly enticing. 

Most rural land ownership has been handed down from one generation to another, by the common system of sharing a piece of land among one's offspring, so that patches of land in one agricultural stretch of land are owned by different members of the same family. As my husband is an only child, his parents gave him all the pieces of land they owned, and they too all border another relative's property. When there is no will, Greek inheritance laws still favour the children of the owner, with a certain part allotted to the spouse. If there are no children, the property is divided among next of kin. This land forms one of the many hidden economies of Greek people, which allow them to survive through harsh socio-economic conditions. This land is often handed down to later generations with no strings attached or money exchanged.

Our olive grove at Mesomouri ('middle face'): the oblong shape that forms the field (outlined in black) starts from the road on top of a hill and runs down a steep incline to a stream. The forested area in the filed is actually overgrown olive tress that began growing after they were burnt in a fire. The cultivated part has been heavily re-landscaped after the fire to allow easier harvesting of the crops. The housing settlement of the village can be seen on the left at the bottom of the photo. The area affords spectacular views; we are currently in the process of legalising it for building purposes.

My husband's parents were both from the same village, which carries both advantages and disadvantages. The various patches of land that they each owned are spread all over the village, which means that we can't park our car in one area, water all our fields and then leave. We have to go to each individual field to work the land. Eventually, it becomes too much for all of us as we also have our day jobs, so some fields are now neglected. At least they are all found in the same general area, so we don't need to travel far from one field to another to get jobs done. It also means that we can swap similar-sized land parcels to neighbouring land owners, who may have another piece of land neighbouring our other properties; in this way, a small piece of land becomes bigger and more manageable. Land parcels can be all sorts of sizes: On one plot, we own just 15 olive trees. A neighbour has his eye on the land parcel, but isn't offering enough money or a decent swap for it. Hence, we have to be on our guard that it doesn't get tresspassed (he may plant trees right on the border, or move the boundaries - often denoted by a stake - without our knowing).

If we did not live close to our land parcels, some of them would no longer be there for us - they would now be in another person's hands. Καταπάτηση (ka-ta-PA-ti-si, treepassing on another person's land) was especially common in the past when people emigrated. The remaining relatives would find ways to divide up properties according to the descendants that lived in Greece, not including those who had left. This is understandable in some ways, but it is often the cause of bitter resentment among the family who was left out. One of the primary reasons for family feuds in Greece is property division, even amongst siblings who may even live in the same neighbourhood. My husband has a very funny example of this kind of feuding: he happened to be a bystander when his two uncles who were not on speaking terms attempted to pass a narrow concrete overbridge with a 20m drop (pictured above) that was wide enough for a single person to walk over at a time. They could see each other as they each started trekking across it from opposite sides, but they refused to acknowledge each other. Apparently, they both crossed the bridge by standing on its veryedge, without touching each other. My husband was tempted to shout out a greeting to them (they had not noticed them), but he didn't want to break their concentration...

Our uncultivated field at Koukouliana ('hooded neighbourhood'): The area marked in the round circle was once a patch of undulating hills, planted with orange and olive trees, like the surrounding area. It was not one land parcel, but rather a number of unconnected patches, due to the different heights of each field. In terms of function, however, they were difficult pieces of land to maintain: before the landscaping, there was no public road to access them, so my husband harvested any crops from the fields there, he had to carry all the produce on his back and walk to the nearest public access - a narrow concrete overbridge wide enough for a single person to walk over at one time (the long strip labeled in the photo) with a 20-metre drop (the neighbouring landowners - most of whom are related to him - would refuse access to him from the public roads that bordered their properties. To create access to the fields, we had to buy bits of land from various relatives, which meant that we sometimes had to haggle over the price of a lemon tree that had to be cut down, or a 10mx2m strip of land that had to be bought. The whole area was then relandscaped by moving earth to raise or lower the hills accordingly. The bottom left hand corner shows photovoltaic panels, a possible use for our own field in the future. In the photo below, the panels and the bridge are both visible.

If you do not take care of your land, you risk having boundary trespassers abusing it (known as καταπατητές, katapa-ti-TES, in Greece); this is a problem when owners don't live close to their ancestral land. When you can't care for your own land, you can hire help to tend it and keep it weed-free, as a number of our field neighbours do who live in Australia and the US. Whatever you do, you need to know where its borders are (there is no law yet stating that all land must be fenced), and what's happening on it, otherwise it may be trespassed, and you just might find cannabis plants growing on it on your once-in-a-blue-moon visit. On the one piece of land I inhertied from my father, a cousin informed me that someone was growing hashish on it (so we cut off the water supply); on one of my husband's lesser used fields, he found 'leaning stakes', very young olive trees planted right beside them, and someone had even sown beans on the land!

We've gone two steps further by registering all our land parcels legally and devising ways of fencing each property. This has involved digging up old paperwork, getting affidavits and signing testimonials, thankfully all with a positive outcome; at the same time, it is not a cheap process - lawyers, land assessors, builders and government officials have all been involved. Now this land can be passed on to our children fairly without the worry of family feuds breaking out. It's easy to let things slip by as they did before, but the world catches up with you eventually, and when you realise that you don't have the energy to catch up with the world, it's too late to do anything about it.

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