Patrick Comerford
The news from Santorini each day is distressing and heartbreaking, with tremors and high magnitude earthquakes almost daily in the Aegean waters surrounding the island. Santorini is one of major tourist destinations in Greece and the island’s economy depends on tourism.
Seismic activities in the area have brought more than 20,000 tremors since late over the past month, many of them over 4 or even 5 on the Richter scale.
This looks like being a bleak summer for the people of Santorini. All the early tourists on the island have been evacuated, along with many workers in the tourist sector. Schools have been closed for weeks now, and many shops, businesses, restaurants and hotels show no signs of opening in the weeks ahead, and plans for the summer season are on hold.
Nobody, so far, is actually saying that a volcanic eruption is possible. But, because of the increase in seismic activity, the Greek authorities declared a state of emergency for the island on 6 February, and it remains in effect until at least next Monday (3 March).
Santorini is a small volcanic island but it is one of Greece’s most popular tourist attractions, and is visited by about 3.5 million tourists each year. Tourism is the mainstay of the economy of Santorini and a major sector in the Greek economy. But the present seismic activities leave island businesses not knowing how or whether they can run this year.
The tremors have resulted in a significant drop in bookings ahead of this year’s summer session, according to the newspaper, To Vima. The Finance Ministry says a rescue package will be put in place for the island if the seismic activity persists for an extended period. But a prolonged seismic threat could lead to cancellations, reduced visitor numbers and revenue losses. This could also have a dire knock-on effect on other sectors, including agriculture and commerce.
Santorini is unrivalled as the most photographed island in Greece and is the face of Greece to the rest of the world. Images of Santorini probably outnumber even images of the Acropolis in Athens, Knossos or Mykonos on the walls of Greek restaurants and cafés throughout England and Ireland, making it a significant selling-point for Greek tourism.
With its cubist white houses and blue doors and domes, steep grey volcanic cliffs and deep blue sea waters, Santorini has become stereotypical picture-postcard Greece. For example, images of Santorini decorate the Greek restaurants and food outlets throughout Milton Keynes, including Souv-Lucky Day, which sells the best of Greek street food in Midsummer Place, Eating Greek on Church Street, Wolverton, Apollonia in Newport Pagnell, and, further afield, Deja Vu Restaurant in Northampton.
Those blue domes complement the blue skies and blue seas are often the first images that captivate potential visitors when they are dreaming about and planning a package holiday in Greece. And when they tourists return home, these posters, postcards, coasters, calendars and fridge magnets decorate their homes as a reminder to return again.
Anyone who has ever been on holiday in Greece is familiar with the work Georges Meis as a photographer, even if they do not remember his name. His exceptional photographs of stunning Greek Island scenery, especially Santorini, Mykonos and Crete, are easy to recognise and have been reproduced on thousands of those keepsakes sold throughout Greece.
Georges Meis also captures wild primary colours, fading doors, mesmerising sunsets and gnarled and dignified faces of old people who know every joy and every hardship that modern Greece has endured. Each year, without fail, I buy countless copies of his photographs in calendars or on postcards – not to send to family and friends but just as keepsakes and memories.
The 3,000 bare, rocky outcrops in the blue Aegean are his raw material as an artist. His eye, how he frames and catches old doors, narrow steps, inviting alleyways and the domes of churches, and the way he uses panoramic opportunities to provide vistas of harbours, bays and island shorelines have inspired my own efforts to take photographs in Crete.
His panoramic photographs were considered avant garde when they were first published. It was the first time that photographs taken from an angle of 360 degrees were presented in compositions such as these. It is so easy to forget how revolutionary and influential he has been now that we all have apps that allow us to take panoramic photographs with our iPhones.
He became known for his series of postcards but also attracted international attention for his unique presentations of the Greek islands – particularly Crete, Rhodes, the Cycladic and Aegean islands such as Santorini and Mykonos, and Dodecanese islands including Rhodes and Symi – and mainland Greece too.
His book Land of Crete, Land of the First European Civilisation (2000) took six years to produce, from 1994 to 2000. This was followed by two other coffee table books – Thera or Santorini, Born from Tephra (2006) and The Diamonds of the Aegean (2007) – are then by his second album on the island, Crete – Mother of the European Civilisation (2014).
Some years ago, browsing through the shop at the Fortezza in Rethymnon during my few weeks in Crete, I added to my collection of photographs and postcards by Georges Meis when I bought two ‘canvas-effect’ images based on his photographs taken in Santorini.
They evoked sweet memories of a visit to Santorini about 40 years ago, and for five years those images were framed and hanging in Saint Mary’s Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick, alongside other posters, photographs and paintings.
I still recall with pleasure that late sunny Sunday afternoon on Santorini in the late 1980s. I had arrived from Crete the previous day, and had spent the two days visiting villages, churches, monasteries and beaches across the island.
Late that afternoon, I was sitting on a terrace in Fira on the steep volcanic cliffs, trying to write a little and sipping a glass of white wine. Behind me, on another terrace above, someone was playing Mozart in the background. Below me, the horseshoe-shaped volcanic cliffs fell down to the blue Aegean sea, and out to the west the sun was about to set beyond the neighbouring islands of Nea Kameni, Palea Kameni and Therasia.
It was one of those moments in time that provide a glimpse of eternity. Late that night, I flew on to Athens. When I got back to Crete later that week, I bought a poster with its painting of Oia on Santorini by a local artist, Manolis Sivridakis. I also bought a smaller copy of another of his paintings, ‘Daybreak Santorini.’
Those images hung on the walls of two houses in Dublin, and for many years they continued to bring back memories of the sounds, sights, tastes, smells and thoughts of that sunny afternoon in Santorini.
Manolis Sivridakis has run the Oia Gallery on the northern tip of the island as well as a studio in Athens.
Oia is a nest of narrow lanes and streets lined with characteristic white-washed houses of the Cycladic islands, and many of the white-washed churches have blue domes. Throughout the final days of Ottoman occupation, before Greek Independence, flying the Greek flag was prohibited, but the island was a riotous statement of defiance, with the blue-and-white of Greece sparkling everywhere in the sunshine.
When an earthquake hit Santorini in 1956, parts of Oia were destroyed as they fell into the sea. Many of the buildings that remain are built into the volcanic rock on the slopes of the crater wall. The narrow streets above are filled with souvenir shops and artists’ galleries.
My first booking for a one-day visit to Santorini in the mid-1980s was cancelled when the coach to the ferry never turned up in Rethymnon. I managed to get there the following year. Since the 1980s, I have been back in Greece countless times, returning virtually every year – and sometimes two or three times a year. I have visited 30 or 40 islands over almost 40 years, and I plan to be back in Crete once again for Easter this April.
Each time I amy flying to or from Crete, I find myself picking out the islands in Aegean below, including Saintorini, and each time I am back in Crete I think of returning to Santorini. I changed my mind at the last moment last April; now I doubt that I shall get there this year … I have only a few days, and the continuing tremors and fears of a volcanic eruption have dispelled any suggestions of a day trip. But, doubtless, I shall sip some wine from Santorini, buy some more black, volcanic soap, and return with photographs, prints or calendars by by Georges Meis.
And I shall smile as I recall those fond, lingering memories of the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Santorini … and the sunsets and daybreaks.
