Author: Theofanis G. Kalkanis
published in The Faris Newsletter, Issue 78, July 2023, page 32

Barter economy (or labor) was a common practice in the past in our region and elsewhere. More common was the exchange of labor in olive picking and other agricultural and livestock tasks among families. Usually, barter labor occurred between families, but also between professionals, involving building houses or other activities or even household production of cheese, soap, pasta, etc. However, there were also notable and characteristic cases and stories of barter economy between communities or even between ecclesiastical authorities and the residents or professionals of the villages.

A first case/story is the one that has come down to us and concerns the painting of some of the icons of the altarpiece (iconostasis) of the Holy Trinity of Xirokambi. These are the 14 small icons in a row at the top of the iconostasis. As the old resident of the village, Dim. Men. Xanthakos, narrated before his death, an iconographer, Pan. Lazaris, lived in our area during the time of the Italian-German occupation. He painted icons for churches in exchange for olive oil. Each icon of the iconostasis that he painted (in one day, as remembered by D. M. X.) was “exchanged” for a can of oil!

Another story that is characteristic of barter labor (and on a large scale) is the following: In Xirokambi until the early 1960s, long queues of residents lined up in front of the communal faucets at a few points in the village. Everyone waited to fill containers or pitchers, wooden barrels, or metal jugs with drinking water for all uses. At that time, the community council with presidents Georgios and Nikolaos Koumoustiotis successively, commissioned contractors for a large project for the village and its residents. Water was to be supplied to all houses with underground metal pipes from the tank that had been built in Anakolo. The “contract” with all the residents entailed their mandatory personal labor, “exchanging it” for the provision of water to each house. Instead of personal labor, some residents exchanged with the community a worker or an animal for transportation or a skilled craftsman with money or oil. The project was completed in the early 1970s and changed life in our village and elsewhere.

The third case concerns the operation (in the mid-1960s) in Xirokambi of a Branch of the Gymnasium [high school] of Sparta for the students of our area until an independent Gymnasium was established. At that time, many students used to stop their studies after Primary School or continue their studies in Sparta by renting rooms and receiving baskets of food every day… With the initiative of some residents, pharmacist Theof. G. Kalkanis and merchants Elias Chr. Kapetanakos and Ilias N. Liakakos, the establishment and operation of the branch became possible (after persistent efforts). The original and remarkable thing is that the teachers who were transferred from the Gymnasium of Sparta were “bartered” with the oil collected by the parents from the committee (…)

I (Carol Kostakos Petranek) am honored to receive permission from the Katsoulakos family to translate and share articles from The Faris. Translation verification and corrections have been made by GreekAncestry.net. This is the fourteenth article of the ongoing series. Previous articles can be viewed here.

by George Theoph. Kalkanis

published in The Faris Newsletter, Issue 62, July 2015, pages 3-6

(Note: this post, “Telephone” is the third of three parts describing the earliest modern developments in Xirokampi. Part 1: Light, can be read here; Part 2: Water, can be read here.)

The OTE telephone network entered the houses and shops of the village in the late 1960s and early 1970s. OTE, founded in 1949, succeeding the 3Ts (Post Office [“Tachidromio”] – Telephony – Telegraphy), then began to install telephones connected to automatic dialing systems. The systems for each rural area were operated in the, so-called, Rural Telephone Centers.

In Xirokampi the center was housed for a brief time in the post office that was installed on the ground floor of the house of Dimitris Xanthakos and was to serve the telephones of the inhabitants of the villages of the whole area. The first employee and supervisor was Georgios Evag. Karampelas, who took over all the operations related to telephone and telegraph communications. Then the center was relocated to the ground floor of Ilias Kapetanakos’ house. Panagiotis Il. Komninos and Vassilis Il. Christopoulos also worked at the center temporarily, before Efstratios Ioan. Kritikos was hired as a permanent employee.

In the past, telephones were operated by means of manual systems, whereby the selection of telephone connections was made by means of plugs that operators/answering staff inserted into holes in a panel. They measured with mechanical timers the duration of calls as well, while calls required the turning of a small ‘crank’.

The office of Xirokampi was connected through a telephone line to every neighboring village. Even earlier, communications were made from station to station by telegraph or teletype, which in Xirokampi were originally installed in the house of Sotiris Papadakos (or Kokkinos).

Automation, the expansion of the telephone network and the proliferation of telephones caused (also) in our villages, for some time, an upsurge in pranks among the residents. In Xirokampi, coffee shop waiters would move around with trays throughout the market after telephone orders turned out to be pranks. Also, some people woke up one night after a call from the headquarters – supposedly – of OTE and cut the wires of their phones when they were warned of an imminent explosion of their device (!). However, at the same time they enabled family members who were away – especially abroad – to talk more often and more privately (since the privacy of telephone conversations was not guaranteed by the – very little – soundproofed ‘booths’ in call centers). But they also reduced the frequency of the letters they exchanged, as the postal employees of the time (Dimitris Georgountzos, Georgios Katsaros and Kleomenis Anastasakos) found and claimed.

I am honored to receive permission from the Katsoulakos family to translate and share articles from The Faris. Translation verification and corrections have been made by GreekAncestry.net. This is the ninth article of the ongoing series. Previous articles can be viewed here.

By Socrates P. Vafakos
published in The Faris Newsletter, Issue 33, January 2003, pages 19-21

In today’s world, a pair of shoes is a simple matter in terms of manufacturing. They are made in factories on mass production lines with the latest technology and sold en masse to the world. In the early decades of the 20th century, however, when technology and modern machinery were non-existent, there were a few cobblers, who at the bench and in their workshops, made custom-made leather shoes and repaired worn and punctured shoes. Due to poverty, making a new pair of shoes was a rare phenomenon. It was considered a luxury to have a second pair of shoes. For this reason, the craftsmen, the so-called shoemakers, made new shoes on demand only. They would usually set up their bench in the shoe shop and with the help of workers and apprentices, they would repair damaged shoes. How many times didn’t the cobblers return to the surrounding villages to repair people’s shoes?

Every region of Greece had shoemakers and of course Xirokampi was not an exception. In Xirokampi, Ioannis Panageas had a shoemaker’s shop across the street from where Mr. Mandrapilia’s paint shop is today. The brothers Nikos and Argyris Kalianiotis had a shoemaker’s shop in the building that belonged to Panagiotis Kyriakakos. Later in the same place was the shoemaker’s shop of Yannis Alexakis, who had married the daughter of Argyris Kalianiotis. Panagiotis Christopoulos had a shoemaker’s shop in the building that belonged to Napoleon Andreakos. In Katsouleika was the shoemaker’s shop of Evangelos Kritikos, while Panagiotis Kalianiotis, who lives today in Sparta, had his shoemaker’s shop opposite the bakery of Nikolakakos. Finally, there is Georgios Starogiannis who is 96 years old today and lives in Xirokampi. His first shoemaker’s shop was in the house of Arachovitis. In 1933, having already been 10 years in the cobbler’s art, he went to the square and opened a shop next to Vangelis Liakakos’ house.

“Barba” Georgios Starogiannis retired when he completed 45 years of love for his craft. He is the only shoemaker along with “barba” Pantelis Skliros who now lives in Katsouleika. Like all shoemakers, he had several workers in his shop, around 20. He mentioned a few to me: Pantelis Skliros, Pantelis Frangis, Iraklis Komnenos, Konstantinos Chrysikos, Lias Chios, Yannis Filosofos who was also a good shoemaker, just like the aforementioned. There were of course many other cobblers who worked with diligence and craftsmanship in the shoe shops of Xirokampi. “Barba” Giorgis Starogiannis, during the occupation period, was the only one in Xirokampi who could manufacture the so-called German boots or vaketes (βακέτες).

The shoemakers made shoes on demand. They were made to fit the feet of the person who ordered them. At first, the cobblers took measurements with a tape measure. To give the shape of the shoe to the treated leathers and sole, they fitted them with a special shoe mold called kalapodi (καλαπόδι). Previously, of course, they had cut the leathers with a sharp blade, or if the skins were thin, with a cutter [similar to a wire cutter]. These two tools were sharpened with a special tool, called matsaki (ματσάκι). The pieces of leather were placed in the kalapodi and underneath was the vardoulo (βάρδουλο) [a strip of leather on the bottom of a shoe to which the sole is nailed or sewn].  Using small nails called spragges (σπράγγες), they nailed the sole to the skin.

After the whole construction took the shape of the shoe and the leather was repaired, they removed the nails and threw them away and where the nails had been, they sewed the skin with an awl. Then, to fasten the heels to the shoes, a hole was drilled to insert the wooden spike which was made from a piece of board. The tool which was used to drill the hole was called katsaproki (κατσαπρόκι). After affixing the heel with the wooden spike, they secured it with nails called telakia (τελάκια), which varied in size. To prevent the shoes and especially the boots from wearing out easily, two metal taps (or clips) were nailed, one on the toe and one on the back of the shoe. All around the shoe, where the leather meets the sole, the cobblers made various decorative stitches and engravings.  The construction of the shoe was completed by polishing the sole, the heel and the bottom of the shoe with three smooth surface tools, the machineta (μακινέτα), the camareto (καμαρέτο) and the lampougio (λαμπούγιο). In particular, for polishing the heel, the cobbler would first heat the polishing tool over a fire in a small tin can. Such a pair of leather shoes needed a day to be made by an experienced craftsman.

Making a pair of shoes required great craftsmanship and artistry. An incident proves this: a customer from Potamia haggled with “barba” Giorgis Starogiannis for a pair. “Barba” Georgios, to show him the quality of the shoes he would buy, put the shoes on scales which balanced perfectly. The shoes were of equal weight, something difficult to do because they were handmade.

Of course, as we have already pointed out, the main work was repair. They patched full of holes and repaired damaged, worn out shoes. Every time there was a market, people from the surrounding villages and the mountains would come and have their shoes repaired by the shoemakers who set up their stalls in the square of Xirokampi. Often, the cobblers would go to villages and mend shoes on the spot. When the sole was punctured, they would patch it with a piece of leather. When the leather was punctured, they would put the shoe in the kalapodi and patch it with a piece of leather, called fola (φόλα).

At the beginning of the century, in the first decades, when there was no eight-hour work day, the shoemakers worked many hours a day (10 – 15) and sometimes stayed overnight at their work, without being paid extra wages and overtime by their bosses. The working conditions in the shoemaker’s shops were difficult, but they became more humane when the right to an eight-hour work week was secured, for which there had been many struggles all over the world.

Today, no one in Xirokampi follows the art of shoemaking. The old ones have either died or have now retired (G. Starogiannis, P. Skliros, P. Kalianiotis), while the younger ones do not have the passion to continue this profession. After all, there are now shoe industries that manufacture many pairs of shoes at low cost. Very soon, unfortunately, the shoemaker’s trade will be completely eliminated in all of Greece, as the last cobblers will also retire.

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I am honored to receive permission from the Katsoulakos family to translate and share articles from The Faris. Translation verification and corrections have been made by GreekAncestry.net. This is the sixth article of the ongoing series. Previous articles can be viewed here.