The Greece’s Famed But Emptying Island

When winter attracts in on Antikythera, the already meagre inhabitants of the remoted Greek island shrinks to nearly nothing.

“There are 20 to 25 of us, no kids, no bakery,” stated native chief Giorgos Harhalakis, who’s preventing an uphill battle to revive the small Aegean island’s fortunes.

“I am not giving up,” he advised AFP.

A speck of land between the islands of Kythera and Crete, Antikythera, like many rural areas in Greece, has suffered regular depopulation.

When the final nationwide census was held in 2021, it had simply 39 inhabitants, down from 120 in 2011.

Photograph Credit score: AFP

Harhalakis, 37, nonetheless remembers his first years at major college within the Nineteen Nineties, earlier than his household, like others, was compelled by “monetary issues” to maneuver to the mainland.

On the time, the island was residence to “farmers, fishermen and cattle breeders” and had round 15 communities, he stated. 

As we speak, solely the port of Potamos is inhabited.

Within the rocky heights of Antikythera, the dry-stone partitions of terraced fields are nonetheless seen between deserted and collapsed homes. 

The island’s solely connection to the skin world is by boat to Kythera and Crete. 

Shuttered colleges

The exodus meant that the college closed for 20 years earlier than reopening in 2018 for simply three pupils — the youngsters of Despina and Dionysis Andronikos, an Antikythera couple who returned from Athens.

“However in 2021, when my eldest daughter completed major college, we needed to depart so she might go to secondary college in Kythera,” Dionysis Andronikos stated.

The college was compelled to shut once more — one in every of dozens throughout Greece that confronted an analogous destiny owing to lack of pupils when the college 12 months started final month.

Photograph Credit score: AFP

Greece’s fertility price of 1.43 kids per lady in 2021 is under the EU common of 1.53 kids, in line with EU knowledge company Eurostat.

A latest examine by the Greek Institute for Demographic Analysis (IDEM) discovered that one in three of the nation’s municipalities has fewer than 10 births a 12 months.

The institute attributed this to Greece’s ageing inhabitants, but additionally to “the extraordinarily uneven distribution of the inhabitants”. 

Athens is residence to over a 3rd of the nation’s 10.5 million inhabitants.

And with over a fifth of its inhabitants aged 65 and over, Greece ranks fourth amongst EU member states with the very best variety of aged.

Solely Italy (23.8 p.c), Portugal (23.7 p.c) and Finland (23.1 p.c) rank larger, in line with Eurostat.

To make issues worse, over half one million younger folks left the nation through the monetary meltdown of the final decade.

Some efforts have been made to draw new residents to areas in want.

Within the mountain village of Fourna, in central Greece, the native church invited massive households to maneuver in to stop the closure of the native college. 

In September, this initiative attracted a household with six kids. 

However an analogous try, launched three years in the past in Antikythera, has thus far didn’t bear fruit.

Historical laptop, new hope

For Harhalakis, the island’s group chief, the primary downside “is the shortage of infrastructure. The state wants to supply incentives” for the development of homes and outlets, he stated. 

In winter, the island has just one cafe, which serves each as a tavern and a small retailer. It’s run by a person in his eighties.

“The native inhabitants is ageing, and the way forward for the island is unsure,” stated Catherine Dechosal, a retired Frenchwoman who divides her time between the island and her homeland.

This 12 months the federal government launched a child bonus to counter the demographic collapse.

However specialists warn that rising the variety of births just isn’t the one reply. 

“Mortality charges and immigration play a decisive position and shouldn’t be downplayed,” Vyron Kotzamanis, director of IDEM, just lately advised Greek state information company ANA. 

Harhalakis hopes that the deliberate local weather change observatory on the island will create jobs.

Antikythera already enjoys an outsized fame within the scientific world.

A 2nd-century astrological clock believed to be the world’s oldest laptop was discovered by sponge divers off its coast within the early twentieth century among the many stays of a Roman-era shipwreck.

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