Letter from Veria. Farewell to the city (Diving into the childhood).

By Pantelis Goularas

Which is the proper way to say goodbye to a city? And most important, how you can say goodbye to the city you spent your childhood, you grew up and you lived most years of your entire life? Now, when is time to say farewell, you start visiting all the places that were significant in some periods of your life and you look back. Most of all you remember. You recollect in your mind, moments and events that determined you, sweet memories or not so sweet.

And now, saying goodbye to Veria, before the next big step of my life, I decided to start from the neighborhood of my early years, from where my family house is, like, in the same time, a diving into my childhood.

The neighborhood where I grew up, is known with the name Kiriotissa, from the name of the parish church. In the touristic guides, it is written as the old Christian neighborhood of the city. The older inhabitants of Veria and the people of the neighborhood, know it with the name Kakosouli. Probably it took the name from its cobblestone and always narrow streets. Or maybe because many of its people had their origins from the historical area of Epirus with the name Souli. We, the people of the neighborhood, used to call each other as Kakosouliotes. It means the inhabitants of Kakosouli.   

How many memories! Here is the doorstep, where I used to sit as a child, waiting my companions for a playdate. Here is the wall of the house across mine. I almost demolished it, kicking the ball every day against it. And here is the neighborhood chapel. Gorgi is the name. The front yard of the chapel was the place we used to play. Hide and seek, chase, ballgames and many other. And here is the street we used to play football, most times with one goalkeeper, the same one for both teams. It looks narrow now, but for us it was large enough for a good football match.

My memories path through the photo below:

The church of St Savvas of Kiriotissa or just Kiriotissa, gave my neighborhood its name.

My family house. In the ground floor, left side, was my father's grocery store. I was his assistant during those days. Many times, I replaced him in the shop or running errands. It looks vandalized of slogans. Somebody wrote his longing or his football preferences. And nobody minds of the destruction he causes. Especially in Veria vandalism like this, is very often. It happens, most of the times, on poor people houses, people they can't restore the damage. Or on public property (public buildings, traffic signs) and the restoration is paid from the citizens. It's a mark of our civilization level, and it has no relation with the freedom of speech or the artistic creation. Not only Veria, but almost all the cities of Greece face the same problem.

The chapel of Virgin Mary Gorgoipikoos or Gorgoepikoos or just Gorgi. (The name means “Fast Responding” Virgin Mary). During my childhood, there was no fence. The whole front yard was a playground. These short walls under the pavilion, were playing the role of the horse, when the company decided to play the Young Sheriff. For those they don't know or they don't remember, the Young Sheriff and his companions were the heroes of the weekly child reading, we used to read in the 60s.

The Gorgi downhill. The downhill of the neighborhood. It was starting, approximately 20 meters above the photograph's point and the end was down to the neighborhood of Ladomili (Oil Mills). During the winter, when the street was covered with snow (very often in the 60s) this was winter sports field. Races (we called them slides) on handmade sleds. Injuries were very often, fortunately not serious. Lodomili (Oil Mills) was the area of the old sesame oil mills. Sesame oil production was an important part of my city's economy, during the last years of the Turkish administration and after the liberation as well. Unfortunately, there are no oil mills any more.

Φωτογραφία αριθ. 022. The football field. At the beginning, its size was triple with the closest yard at the left included. When the yard's owner decided to build the fence, the place became smaller. But we insisted playing there, even when we had the chance to play in wider place; close by. Probably, because we hoped that the owner will remove the fence and he will give his property back to us for our games.

(To be continued)