ASIANOVERLAND.NET WINTER EUROPEAN DAY 29/202:  KALLISTI TO KOMOTINI, GREECE

"9/1/81 NEA KILISTI TO KOM

(WHERE THE F... ARE WE?)

…. IN BLOODY SNOW COUNTRY, THAT'S WHERE.

KEL'S COMMENT - "FOR 20 DAYS AND 20 NIGHTS WE PUSHED THE FRIGGING BUS"

We probably consumed enough Ouzo and Retsina last night to get some sleep/unconsciousness, but it's the most freezing night on a Double Decker, and we slowly open our eyes just after dawn to see we've been sleeping in a stalactite cave of icicles, everything frozen, and the kettle frozen into a solid brick. But once the kettle's boiled and we have morning coffee/tea, we're relieved to be alive after yesterday's terrifying drive.

Of course, with everything frozen solid, we can't start the bus, so we put it into 4 wheel drive by getting the punters to push start the bus (again …,. but I reckon the punters exaggerated when they wrote in the Trip Book that we'd pushed the bus for 20 days and 20 nights, when this is only Day 29.)

When 4 wheel drive doesn't work, and the punters reckon they're exhausted, everything's still frozen, so we light a fire under the fuel tank and the fuel lines to unfreeze the fuel. This is a method we used on a Kathmandu to London overland last year, especially in eastern Turkey near Mount Ararat and Erzerum near the Iran/Turkey border, where the fuel lines froze every night the bus engine was turned off.

Eventually, after the punters have had enough 4 wheel drive exercise, INTER cranks up, engine started, and we're off, although we don't really know where we are or how far we'll drive. The simple task is to drive east because eventually we'll get to Istanbul, wherever we are and whichever way we drive. Geographic reality sinks in – we always say "All roads lead to Rome", but for the last two thousand years, the reality is that all roads lead to Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul, so we know we'll get there eventually.

I've tried to find out something about the "Kallisti"" town we slept in last night, but the best I can manage is from Greek mythology; "Upon learning that she was the only diety who was not invited to the marriage of two gods, the goddess Eris inscribed "Kallisti" onto a golden apple, which she then tossed into the wedding reception of gods. The ensuing quarrel over possesion of the golden apple, between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, eventually culminated in the Trojan war."

Alright, that'll do, this is where the Trojan war must have started.

We manage to drive a grand total of nearly 20 kilometers today, before we arrive at the nearest city in the easterly direction, Komotini, a city in the region of East Macedonia and Thrace. It is the capital of the Turkish minority region, home to a sizeable Turkish originated, Turkish speakingMuslim minority, who were excluded from the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923:

"The following persons shall not be included in the exchange provided for in Article 1: (a) The Greek inhabitants of Constantinople. (b) The Moslem inhabitants of Western Thrace. All Greeks who were already established before the 30th October, 1918, within the areas under the Prefecture of the City of Constantinople, as defined by the law of 1912, shall be considered as Greek inhabitants of Constantinople. All Moslems established in the region to the east of the frontier line laid down in 1913 by the Treaty of Bucharest shall be considered as Moslem inhabitants of Western Thrace."

Apparently, Komotini flourished during the Ottoman Empire from 1361, when it was called in Turkish Gümülcine, a version of the Greek name, Koumoutsinas. This remained the city's name for more than five centuries under the Ottomans (1361–1912) and continues as its modern Turkish-language name today.

The city continued to be an important hub connecting the capital city of Constantinople with the European part of the Empire, and grew accordingly. Many monuments in the city today date to this era.

 Ottoman censuses show that Muslim Turks quickly became dominant in the rural districts around the city, and built masjid (small mosque), an imaret, bath, and shops outside the city walls, establishing a waqf  (charitable trust), that became the "nucleus of Islamic life in Western Thrace".

After the Greek independence war, widespread nationalism caused vast destruction of these historical Ottoman buildings throughout Greece, and very few of them survived. Recently some of them were restored with the help of Turkish government, although it is still very difficult to get permission from Greek authorities.

The Ottomans didn't take over a region's "nationality” or religions, but allowed each religious group to operate independently under their own religious rules – in the 1519 census, the city numbered 393 Muslim households and 197 single (unmarried or widowed) Muslims, 42 Christian households and 14 single Christians, and 19 Jewish households and 5 single Jews.  The French traveller Pierre Bellon du Mans, who visited the city in 1548, stated that "the city is inhabited by a few Greeks and majority Turks".

In the 1600s, new buildings included a small Friday mosque, a double bath, a madrasah, and an imaret—by Ahmed Pasha, who sponsored numerous mosques throughout Thrace. Ahmed's mosque, the Yeni Mosque, which survives to this day, is the only structure in Greece to feature Iznik tiles from the 1580s, the zenith of the Iznik potters' art. When the traveller Evliya Çelebi visited the town in 1667/8, he found "4,000 prosperous, stone-built houses", with 5 main mosques, 11 masjids, 2 imarets, 2 baths, 5 madrasahs,  17 caravanserais, and 400 shops.

We're here to shop, buy food, eat and drink, and welcome a bit of warmth in an otherwise freezing journey. There's no point driving any further today, and we don't want to be out in the cold again like last night.

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