The gate in Pomakochoria, Greece: Memories of underdevelopment?

Abstract

In the Region of Thrace, in Northern Greece, there are 15 rural communities with inhabitants of Slavish origin and Muslim religion, named Pomaks. From the end of the WW2, until the '90s, the Pomak settlements (Pomakochoria) had been isolated from the rest of the country and inaccessible to visitors, researchers etc. They were called ‘border areas’ and special permits had to be issued by the police to each individual who sought to travel there. The general state of isolation of Pomakochoria is encapsulated in a single word: ‘bara’, which means ‘gate’, it refers to the three check points beyond which, free access was forbidden, and signifies the barriers between the villages and the rest of the area -and the country. The ‘bara’ was formally abolished in 1995, but its inheritance is still obvious in many -and often contradictory- ways, which this article aspires to analyze. © Balkiz Yapicioglu and Konstantinos Lalenis 2022.