An article about Dermati

Dermati: The Village Where No One Goes

This September, I spent an unforgettable week amidst the rugged mountains of Evrytania.

This mountainous Greece always evokes a special emotion in me because here my beloved Alpine grandeur merges with the familiar Mediterranean charm—fir trees with plane trees and vineyards, cicadas with the scent of Savoy or Switzerland, yet also authentically Greek. Authentic in its love for nature but also in its human perspective, with the quintessential ingredients of the Greek countryside: poverty, courage, and open-heartedness. Perhaps in Evrytania, these three characteristics are even more pronounced. I saw truly heroic villages perched on steep slopes at 900, 1,000, and 1,100 meters, isolated and 'far from God', where everything is lacking except for brave determination and a hospitable spirit.

After first mentally greeting the places where I spent beautiful days or hours—the enchanting and comfortable Mikro Chorio of Karpenissi, Voutiro with its picturesque festival in Koumasa, the friendly Karitsa, the lofty Sella and Milia—I want to transport you to one of the most unlikely heroic villages. It's called Dermati and is hidden in an eagle's nest, to the right of the path between Mikro Chorio and Prousos, the same imposing route taken in 1823 by the deceased Markos Botsaris towards Mesolongi, with a stop at the Monastery of Proussos so that the sick Karaiskakis, who stayed there, could rise and bid farewell to his fallen brother in arms.

But Dermati is so hidden that, when I first made this extraordinary journey two years ago—a five-hour ascent—I couldn't discover it, unaware of its existence. This year, when I reached the Balteika Inn and took a brief pause before heading to the Monastery, my eye caught some houses perched on the opposite mountain, and when I inquired, they replied laughing, "It's the famous Dermati, the village where no one goes." That alone was enough to urge me to climb up there, even though the idea seemed strange and amusing to me. Indeed, the next day, returning from my second pilgrimage to Prousiotissa and in memory of the two legendary heroes, I decided to visit the current humble heroes.

After passing Dipotama, where Krikelliotis and Karpenissiotis meet, immediately after the bridge, I left the mule track of Prousos, took a narrow goat path, and after an hour and fifteen minutes of continuous, steep ascent, I reached the saddle where, at the highest point (860 m), stand the church and the school of Dermati. But how can I describe the astonishment, almost awe, when ascending, at a turn of the path, I beheld the incredible place where about 30 houses are sparsely scattered: A narrow gorge nestled between two wild and barren slopes, with a slope perhaps 65 degrees (it took me 40 minutes per hour to climb from the lowest houses to the highest). Earth, 'natural' earth, I would say, does not exist, nor any level ground. They break the rock to make 'terraces' to grow a bit of corn for bread and livestock, and to plant a few walnut and grapevines.

With emotion and admiration, I counted on just half the slope, 50 such terraces with walls, wrested with effort from the rock and the precipice. If only they had water! Victims of a tragic geological irony, the residents of Dermati living above Dipotama, i.e., at the confluence of two actual rivers, do not have irrigation water! They water their corn every 22 days, though it should be every 10 days at least. I met the active president of the Community as he descended from the hill overlooking the village, where he had gone to build a small dam and thus save a precious stream that was disappearing for his fellow villagers.

So Dermati is without soil, without water, without roads and transport: only a path connects it with the road of Mikro Chorio, which has not yet advanced much towards Prousos; it has neither a shop nor—unbelievably for a Greek village—a café! Now the president is taking care to fill this void, so that "the villagers can gather somewhere." Yet despite these inhuman conditions—only four families descend a bit lower in winter—back in 1949, when everything burned down and they were advised to leave the inhospitable hiding place, they replied, even to the Queen herself: "How can we descend to the plain? How can we confine ourselves to a city? We don't like it." And they rebuilt all their houses. In 1953, they even built a nice school where about 10 children go (this winter, I imagined them climbing up the steep slope in the blizzard, surrounded by a meter of snow around the school).

Without soil, without water, on their meager land, they plant a few flowers and offer their warm welcome to strangers. Passing by the president's house, I didn't find him there, but his daughter-in-law kindly attended to me, and when I met him near the future café, unable to offer me anything, he said with sadness, "What can we offer you here?"

What can you offer me, dear friends? I will never forget you. I will never forget the tortured, undaunted, and open-hearted Dermati, fashioned in the image and likeness of the Greek people.

The above text was first published in the print edition of the newspaper 'Eleftherotypia' on Thursday, August 20, 2009. It was written by Roger Milliex (1913-2006), who was for many years the director of the French Institute in Athens and was involved in mountaineering and nature appreciation, publishing related texts. The Marseille-born intellectual loved Greece with passion and romanticism. He was a member of the Academy of Athens and embodied the modern Philhellene.

Dermati: The village where no one goes