The car as it leaves Xanthi behind it, climbs up to the mountains of the prefecture in a magical landscape. "Switzerland is over here," Hussein will tell us a little later in a café in Mykis. The fact that the area is poor and is far from the corresponding areas of the Greek province is easily distinguishable. Small lots, improvised greenhouses, agricultural work with horses and mules. Images of another era.

The region of Xanthi is getting worse off the economic crisis. The problem in the Pomak villages (which in some villages do not even want to hear this term) or Muslim villages is not as intense as in the capital of the prefecture because of immigration, which for the region is at the same time a "gift and nightmare". Because money is coming, but the families are shared between Greece, Germany, the Netherlands or some other country, usually Europe. For those who are not able to leave, life is very difficult and becomes more difficult.

The traditional occupation of the local people was tobacco. Prices have fallen to only 3 euros per kilogram and the cost is drained. And as if that were not enough, this year the broker who took the tobacco "weighed a cannon" and people have not yet been paid. It is the permanent grievance that you will hear in the cafes.
Production is now low, the cost is high and the income is small, and it is a common secret that many people than tobacco buyers buy a small part of their produce in order to earn income and make a statement as farmers have insurance on OGA.

"Stone years"

Hussein and Hassan in Mykis call us to have coffee. "I have two boys and are in Germany for work. My daughter's husband also in Germany. They come every six months, they stay for a while and then they get away again. "
At the age of 60, Hussein lived the years of isolation before 1991, when the Mitsotakis government (at the initiative of the previous Ecumenical government, Zolotas) abolished the administrative measures. (restrictions on property transfers, denial of building permits, selective provision of driving licenses, exclusion from loans, removal of the citizenship of Muslims who had definitely left Greece). A policy of discrimination that obeyed the planning of Greece's foreign policy towards Turkey, and which eventually suffered the local residents themselves. At the same time, this event triggered Turkish nationalism and created a toxic atmosphere in the region.

"In 1987 I got a professional diploma. Before they did not give me. I deal with earthworks but there are no longer any jobs. And these few that exist because I owe them to TEVE, I can not get them, "says Hussein
"80% of young people in the village have gone abroad and are mainly in construction," says Hassan, whose son is also in Germany.
This is pretty much a situation that prevails throughout the region and each village has its "specialty".
Jemil and Shunai, two young people from Centaur, have been working for 10 years in Germany in construction. Mykis and Centaurs are villages that build builders in all specialties. They are even considered capable and suitable for the most difficult tasks. The village of Echinos, for example, has many good workers for yards.
In the company that works, Shunai works only 200 people from Centaur, while another 150 people have gone to work in Qatar. "Thousands have left the mountainous Xanthi for the outdoors and again well that we are given this opportunity. The problem is we can not take the family with us. Our company sends us for a job where there is a project. Today in Germany, tomorrow in Italy, the day after tomorrow in Qatar and going on.

Mothers and father role

Our women who stay behind are mothers and fathers together. They are very hardy women and try to keep the family and bring a small income home. That they can. Seasonally they work in tobacco, but there is little money left. The wage is 20 euros and they have to pay their OGA as well. Otherwise they do not get them to work. "

As it sinks, in the central square the café is filled with men in the village. More than half of them are immigrants who have been allowed to see their families and will flee again. Muslim manners in Centaur are very loose. The treats and beers in the cafeteria go and come and some of them also make their own tsipouro. The two mosques of the village also have their own policy. We asked to photograph the mosque in the central square, but his imam did not allow us. He even got a phone and a mufti to get a license. Some locals who perceived his behavior were then decorated with various cosmetics. In the other window at the entrance of the village the situation was very relaxed. They welcomed us at prayer time, to which we have to say that there were few people with an average age of more than 70.

The effort of the Ottoman Empire in the region, first with the imposition of almost the Turkish language and then with various pressures, does not catch everywhere and everything. Some younger children who migrated and quickly "open their eyes" do not want to obey at all. Some celebrations organized by the Centauri youth do not like the local religious authority at all and there are open conflicts and rejection by a large part of their youth of the strict Muslim protocol.

S. is also an immigrant in Germany. "After the minority elementary school, I went to my Greek daughter. Greek is its first language and is now at the university. At home we spoke Greek and the Turkish learned them a little in the elementary school, some of the companies, and the television. That's what I say to you so you do not think we all speak Turkish here only. Previously you could meet people who did not speak Greek, especially women who did not go to school. But the seasons have changed. "

Another problem is that the houses there were not receiving Greek TV. Can you imagine it? In 2017, you can not catch state television - which you pay with your taxes - if you do not put your own antenna. "I myself pulled 200 meters of cable so I can have Greek TV at home"

Nikos Pappas, the Minister of Digital Policy, is currently touring the villages recently to announce a program for the provision of free satellite access to Greek TV stations in the area that are not covered by Digea's digital label. This action concerns about 13,000 households in mountain areas.
People in the cafe could meet them anywhere and talk to you with a complaint about the same problems. Unemployment, high taxes, debts that can not be paid.
Jemali worked for years in Athens. "I built Karaiskakis, the Concert Hall, the Metro and now I'm five years in Germany to work. Here we can not make a single road "will tell us.
"What I'm thinking is what I will do when I can not work anymore," says Hussein. Until a few years ago, the Greek company that took us for our job was insured here in Greece. Now it is cut off and insured us in Cyprus or in Qatar. I think what will happen at the time of writing ".

Echinos a few years ago was the village with the largest population in the area. There things are stricter. The café serves no alcohol and plays Turkish television permanently while the mosque is full of people. Echinos is another immigrant village as it is famous for its craftsmen in shipbuilding. Most who have left for work abroad work in the German and Dutch yards.

Immigration is the one that decimates the Pomak villages and at the same time gives them life. If this was not possible, the villages would desert. And at the same time, the whole prefecture of Xanthi would live the consequences. The fact that the Xanthi market remains alive today is due to the immigrants' money coming from outside.

The economic collapse of the prefecture of Xanthi

"In the last decade the Xanthi law took the downhill ride," the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Xanthi, Stelios Moraitis, told CNN Greece. According to data from the Xanthi Staff Center, unemployment in the county reaches 42%, without distinguishing ages.
Until 2008, Mr. Moraitis says, "the industry in the prefecture of Xanthi employed 7,500 people. Industries such as SEKAP, Diana, SEVAT or SEPEK, have been breathing in the prefecture and seasonally they could employ 15,000 and 20,000 people. They did not reach the working hands and they came from Kavala or Komotini, people to work. Xanthi was in the first sixth with the largest industrial cities in Greece. Today the industry is concerned with employing 3,500 workers in a county of 108,000 inhabitants.

This is what forces the world to emigrate. And fortunately why otherwise the law would have sank into poverty. "

The prospects are not very positive as there does not seem to be any investment interest in the region. As Mr Moraitis says, we have not seen any investor interested in our region. Many industries either were shut down or moved to Bulgaria. The only investment that has been made in recent years in the prefecture is Plastics Thrace, a new unit. There is no brick in the county anymore ". One more curse for the region is trafficking and smuggling, says Mr. Moraitis.

"Goods come from Bulgaria and have ravaged the local market. Goods also come from Turkey via Bulgaria and this is affecting the county's income even more. Based on estimates, tax revenue losses from our northern borders are estimated at two billion euros a year. And northern Greece pays the price. Imagine that in Athens the GDP per capita is 22,000 euros and in Xanthi 12,000 euros. How can the world not then emigrate? "

Second chance School

In the half-length hall of the minority elementary school of Centauri, in mountainous Xanthi, pictures of the well-known film by Tassos Boulmetis, "Politika kitchen", can be seen on the table. The students in the classroom are different from what you would expect. It consists only of ladies, with an average age of about 25, all dressed in the traditional costume and the scarf wearing in the Pomakohoria.
Their first reaction to a journalist and even Athens is a caution and a shyness, but with the first conversation the ice breaks and welcomes you with this very sweet pronunciation of the region.

Second chance school in the prefecture of Xanthi is one of the most successful institutions and was embraced by the local community right from its foundation. It was the residents themselves in some cases that were mobilized to set up a secondary school in the region, as too many residents, women in their majority, did not finish school either because of economic conditions or a tradition that wanted girls to be marriage and family, so, "did not need to go to school."

Speaking about education in the villages of the area, we are opening a parenthesis and we should look at the issue in the minority issues and recognize that the Greek state also has a great responsibility for the low level of education in the region and for the fact that too many people has not completed basic education.

Under the Treaty of Lausanne, Muslim villages should have minority schools in which to teach the language of the minority. The minority in the region is not only Turkish speaking. A large part of the population, almost a third, are Pomaks and speak the Pomakic language. Turkey's policy for years wanted the outpouring of the Pomaks with the compulsory teaching of the Turkish language and other pressures under the tolerance of the Greek state.

But much of Pomaks did not "get out" and kept his identity, and in the last few years he has been trying to show it. So we can imagine these people in mountain villages, but they speak Pomakica, learn Turkish and Greek, and English as a foreign language, and in everyday life they use one of the three languages according to the circumstances.

The educational system

Especially for children who go to a minority school and then go to Greek high school, one can understand how difficult it is to join the Greek curriculum. It should be noted that there is no Greek elementary school in the villages of the minority. An attempt was made several years ago to open four Greek primary schools in the region, but the project did not proceed due to reactions from a minority party. The decision, however, is in the drawers of the ministry.

The question is who will find the courage to implement it. Lastly, while one-third of the minority is Pomaks and speaks the Pomak, a Slavic language that incorporates elements of Turkish or Greek or Bulgarian analogy, they never taught their language at school despite the fact that it was provided for by the Treaty of Lausanne .

These people were forced to integrate in the Turkish-speaking minority, which calls itself Turkish. We close here the parenthesis which was a little big but necessary to understand and who does not know how the system works in the area.
Now that knowledge is much easier to access with the spread of the internet that has taken the world out of isolation and migration that has helped thousands to escape the boundaries of the closed "Muslim province", many people, mostly women , returns to Second chance schools, which are Greek, to finish school and improve his Greek.

In the mountainous region of Xanthi there are three schools of second chance, in Manthena, Mycenae and Centaur, and together with the school of the town of Xanthi there are about 170 students. As CNN Greece says the director of the second chance school in Xanthi, Theofanis Chatzimichael, the lesson is "in a way that encourages discussion. In our schools we have many ladies who when they finished the minority elementary school, for social reasons did not go to high school or their parents let them go to high school. Today they have returned to finish school and are very good schoolgirls. Many of our students when they finish the Second Grade School are then enrolled in the high school where they are also very good students. "

60 students in Centaur

At the Centaurus school, a village of nearly 2,300 people on the electoral rolls and a population close to 5,000, there are about 60 students who, after our first acquaintance, have rushed to take pictures of us.

"I love school very much because it teaches me things and helps me to open my mind, to learn to read new words," says Rafin. "Previously we could not study and now we were given the opportunity to do it. My family has no objection. He sees that I like and helps me "
"And the third year if I had the school I would come," says Meriem. "And if they open a high school in Centaur I will try to write. My family has no objection. I'm a little bit angry because I have a young child but I can manage it. "

Second chance school in Centaur is working and residents think it is very important for their place. But the state, as we have said above, has not paid enough attention to education issues. This school works with the "heroic" efforts of teachers. The hourly teachers who had asked to start work last September came in May, and those teachers who worked at that time may have had a three-hour program base, but some were up to 20 hours a week and of course unpaid ...

Cavafy and Shepper in the Ottoman language

A new book in the Pomak language was recently presented in Xanthi and Athens. His title, "translations of Greek and English poetry into the Ottoman language". Translator of Pomak, journalist Sebainin Karachotza, and the publication was taken over by the Cultural Association of Pomak, Prefecture of Xanthi. This is not the first edition of this particular cultural club. In the past, Pomakic stories, calendars, cd, Petrou Theocharidis's book "Traveling in Greece", cooking recipes from the Pomak villages and a photographic album have been published. These editions were funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
Recently, a Pomak dictionary was added to the Pomak literature, completing the literature on the Pomak language that began about a dozen years ago.

Translations from Greek to Potamics have been made from time to time, but this is the first time a translation into the pair of English-speaking. Pomakica has a few years of written tradition - we mentioned above for what reasons - and as many attempts are made with private initiatives. The Pomak language spoken in Greece has incorporated elements of the Greek language, and the new book "comes if it bridges different identities because the Pomak has remained for years away from foreign influences," said in the presentation of the book, Mr. Panagiotis Krimbas, professor at Democritus University, translator and writer.

The Pomak Identity

The effort to promote the street identity from clubs, groups, or individual citizens of Thrace has intensified in recent years, triggering reactions from a minority party that prefers the Turkish identity and is more influenced by the policy of the Turkish consulate. It is obvious that the emergence of the Pomakic identity, with the emphasis on the aggressive definition, "Greek" Pomaks, spoils a status quo in the region, that of the lingering outpouring of the Pomaks and their incorporation into the self-proclaimed Turkish minority, resulting in tensions, nationalist crowns, intimidation, public stigmatization of the Turkish Cypriot press and warnings in person. These are known and occasionally have been branded in the local press.

However, the real situation can not be neglected. The minority consists of Turkish speakers, Pomaks and Roma. Pomaks are about one-third of the minority, Muslims, and despite the fact that many have been assimilated to the Turkish-speaking minority, a large segment claims its identity more and more vigorously and at a social and political level there is already a latent conflict.