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"Everyone had a lover in Spain or Greece!"

It is well known that the Greeks invented (at least supposedly) everything that is imaginable.

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"Everyone had a lover in Spain or Greece!"

It is well known that the Greeks invented (at least supposedly) everything that is imaginable. But that even the sexual revolution and the entire 1968 movement started in Greece, more precisely on a Greek island - that was certainly new to you! Me too, by the way.

I thought it all started in California, at the University of Berkeley, at Woodstock or at the Sorbonne in Paris. But the truth was Rhodes, as I was able to learn from a couple of lovely elderly gentlemen a few years ago.

This story took place in their youth (which was, of course, at the very time when brassieres were burned in Paris), and it seems to have been a wonderful youth in Rhodes. In any case, the older gentlemen raved about it enthusiastically. I met her when I was supposed to write a report about Kamakia for the magazine "Mare", because that's what these gentlemen were called when they were young.

In Italy this category of men is called Pappagalli. In Germany there is no special name for them, but the phenomenon does exist in this country too (I'll just say: ski instructor).

But coming back to the men on Rhodes: kamakia, which means harpoons, which in this case had nothing to do with sport fishing, because these guys weren't after sea creatures, they were after young girls. More precisely: tourists.

From today's perspective, not a big deal. What does a little holiday flirt mean? But the older gentlemen of Rhodes think they have changed the world. "It was us Kamakia who liberated society," says Takis, for example, a likeable man in his prime who was working as a DJ at the time.

It was like this: While people in the north were tiredly discussing in flat shares and a young Finnish or German man needed ten beers to chat up a girl, things got down to business quickly and cheerfully under the Greek sun. "Every girl from the north had a lover in Spain or Greece!" And in this pleasant way, the whole society was finally freed.

Before that, customs were quite strict in the island province in the late 1960s (and into the 1990s). Unlike in Greek cities, young Greek women had little freedom. The young men, however, were unjustly allowed to do whatever they wanted - but without girls it was boring. That's why they kept to themselves and could only dream of women.

The change began in the late 1960s. Because of the military dictatorship in Greece, they were basically anything but happy. But then the following happened on Rhodes: Dictator Papadopoulos had a comparatively large airport built - actually for strategic reasons, in order to be able to take off with fighter planes to nearby Turkey, with which there was (once again) a tense relationship.

Instead of fighter planes, holiday bombers soon landed, packed with guests from England, Germany and Scandinavia. It was the beginning of Greek mass tourism.

The sun shines on Rhodes around 360 days a year. Even in winter, the sea temperature rarely drops below eighteen degrees. In particular, the Scandinavians literally thawed in the face of these conditions, especially since the whole island was full of suitors - the young Greeks could hardly believe their luck given the fact that the girls were traveling alone.

Or not all alone - mostly they had their girlfriends with them. But they traveled without parents or other supervisory staff, and so it happened as it had to: The young Greeks and young tourists bathed, celebrated, danced and made love - also with starlight on the beach (at home, where most very young beauties still lived, they could not bring any girls with them because of the strict customs).

Airports on other Greek islands soon followed. The ferries also brought more and more tourists, the number of holidaymakers increased from year to year, and the age of tourism spread a whole new Greek attitude to life, composed of the following components: ouzo, sirtaki, antique columns, sun and sea, colorful beach dresses, blue chains with the eye of the sea and above all a pinch of oregano.

One more thing I forgot: the tan leather Greek sandals. They have existed since antiquity, even then in a variety of designs, but always recognizable. Foreigners (and of course locals too) stroll around the islands with them, and they can be bought everywhere.

And not only there, but also in Athens, at the tourist stalls at Monastiraki – where a merchant named Melissinos is famous for his made-to-measure sandals, which he even fitted to the Beatles Paul and John before they embarked on their very own island adventure. They wanted to buy an island - the mushroom island. The thing was John Lennon's idea, who wished to live in peace on an island with the band.

Apparently, the Beatles visited several properties. One of these was an island known in accounts of the time as Leslo Island. But which island is behind it can no longer be said.

There was another favourite, however: Agia Triada, a small private island where Winston Churchill had vacationed before. However, the purchase did not come about after all - allegedly because the owners of Agia Triada suddenly no longer wanted to sell their islet (maybe they just wanted to inflate the price).

Today, around fifty years later, it is just being offered for sale again on the Internet for 48,000 euros – a real bargain considering its history!

Even if the island (s)hopping didn't work out, John, Paul, George and Ringo returned deeply relaxed from their vacation in Greece in 1967, and John even had a souvenir with him: in black-and-white pictures you can see him with a Greek shepherd's bag made of sheep's wool on his arm , printed with large Greek meander ornaments.

A few years before the Beatles, a young Canadian had set out for Greece, but didn't want to buy an entire island right away, so he bought a cottage on the enchanting island of Hydra for a paltry $1,500, where he then met his muse, the Norwegian Marianne, met. That was Leonard Cohen, of course, and there are also beautiful black-and-white photos of him and Marianne, laughing as they sit with friends over dinner.

The reason why Cohen ended up in Hydra was that he had sold a book of poetry (at that time Cohen was not a professional musician but a poet) and also made a small inheritance.

The idea of ​​settling in Greece is said to have occurred to him when he met an employee at the bank while withdrawing his money, who enthused about his vacation in Greece. Incidentally, Cohen's cottage on Hydra is still owned by his family and is used, for example, by his son Adam, who can be seen strolling along the harbor on summer evenings.

Cohen, the hippies, the Beatles, the young rippers from Rhodes, the permissive tourists from the north and many more created the very special Greek holiday feeling that has been constantly evolving ever since - for example through the wonderfully colorful film "Mamma Mia!" Greece spectacle. All of this mixed together results in a kind of modern Greek chic - not really authentic, but fun.

This phenomenon can be easily explained using the example of Sirtaki, the supposedly traditional Greek dance. In fact, the sirtaki was invented for the film adaptation of the book "Alexis Sorbas" - the music that strums so easily and catchily there was written by none other than Mikis Theodorakis, who as a composer is anything but a lightweight. But still: Sirtaki is not a traditional piece of music or a traditional dance!

The basis of sirtaki are certain Greek dances called sirtos, which are not dissimilar to sirtaki - this is where the movie sirtaki is inspired. It is now danced as a "classic" in tourist bars on the islands. By tourists for tourists.

The most popular dance among Greeks in Greece, which almost every Greek can master, is actually the Kalamatianos, a rural folk dance.

Anyway, the music played on the islands is very different from what most holidaymakers think. It's called Nisiotika (which even translates to island music). The instruments are violin and lyre, a typical Greek stringed instrument.

Nisiotika are played and danced by the locals at baptisms or island celebrations, and younger people are also enthusiastic and are currently learning the violin and lyre again. One of the most popular dances is the Ikariotikos, which originates from the island of Ikaria.

However, nisiotika can rarely be heard in tourist bars, because they take a bit of getting used to and sound a bit shrill. What is played to tourists instead are laïka tragoudia intoned with bouzoukia (also Greek stringed instruments). However, these songs do not have their origin on the islands, but come from the urban environment.

So now you know about the “true” music of the Greek islands. Then I can now also uncover the matter with the blue Mati, the pendants that have been hanging in souvenir shops since the 1960s: they are not purely Greek lucky charms! You can also find them on the Turkish coast and in the Arab countries. However, they are not called Mati, but Nazar amulets.

But who invented it? It was the Greeks. Really this time. They have already developed in Greek antiquity. Even then, eye symbols were used to ward off the evil eye.

The evil eye thing stems from a theory put forward by Plutarch, who believed that people who spent their lives looking at others with envy eventually damaged their body's constitution to the point that noxious odors came out of their eyes (well, yes). In any case, the symbolized eyes should protect against this.

But before mass tourism, the Mati amulets looked different, and they were worn more in secret: Newborns and small children had a safety pin with a tiny gold or silver-covered Mati attached to their undershirts, often with a very small embroidered pillow attached, sewn into it is a guaranteed genuine splinter from the cross of Christ (manufactured by the millions in a Greek devotional factory). That was back when old women would spit at you to ward off evil looks (to be honest, some still do, just not as many).

But however much the old people might spit, the new age could not be driven out: after Cohen and the Beatles and the Kamakia came the naked people in the seventies. Bearded and long-haired, they lay on the beach, some camped there all summer.

As a child, I noticed that some Greeks were upset about it. However, most of them just smiled. Also: Even if the naked people from the beach had no money for hotels, they were drawn to the taverns and grocery stores, and that boosted sales.

In any case, there are (almost) no more Kamakia today. In truth, of course, they didn't invent the sexual revolution, they just thoroughly enjoyed it. Honestly, the Kamakia of Rhodes didn't even invent themselves, because Kamakia has been around in Greece for a long time.

Maybe even in antiquity. Certainly in my mother's youth, and also in my youth, and not only on the islands but everywhere. On the street, in every café, on the bus, on the beach: you were hit on and annoyed everywhere. Today you would probably call it stalking…

But the old gentlemen from the islands would see things differently and rave about their conquests and the fun they had. A fact that speaks for the Kamakia of Rhodes: Hardly anyone stayed a long time. By the time they were 23 or 24, most of them were tired of the constant digging and gave up, or they had fallen in love and wanted to get married.

But the women with whom they stood in front of the altar were the fun-loving tourists from the north, which is why there are nowhere as many mixed marriages as on Rhodes. Many of these couples are still together. And if they didn't die, they might even still love each other!

This article was first published in July 2020. The text is a slightly shortened chapter from the "Instructions for the Greek Islands" by Stella Bettermann, Piper Verlag, 221 pages.

Greece is reopening its islands to international holidaymakers. As one of the first, a selected group of Germans were allowed to fly to Kos. Greece is economically dependent on tourism.

Source: WELT/ Lea Freist

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