96-year-old Tasos Kolokotronis revives 1930s Nea Magnisia through handcrafted models

A unique portion of past is coming to beingness successful Thessaloniki, thanks to the passionateness and representation of 96-year-old Melbourne nonmigratory and Asia Minor descendant, Tasos Kolokotronis.

Kolokotronis has donated 30 elaborate standard models depicting scenes from agrarian beingness successful 1930s Nea Magnisia — his birthplace successful bluish Greece — to the section assembly of Delta Municipality and the Asia Minor Association of Ionia “Herodotus.” These works, crafted implicit decades, present person a imperishable location successful a repurposed gathering successful the village, which will go a people museum.

The kafenés of Athan Hatzimarkos, who served arsenic president of the Community and the Agricultural Cooperative for galore years. The aforesaid building, connected the other side, besides housed the assemblage bureau from 1935 to 1941.

The models showcase the homes, squares, farming tools, carts, threshing floors, water-drawing systems known arsenic manganopigada (or tsark, successful Turkish), and aboriginal 20th-century agrarian machinery that formed the backbone of mundane beingness successful Nea Magnisia earlier World War II. These dioramas were antecedently connected show successful an Australian depository for implicit ten years — a state where Kolokotronis spent overmuch of his big life.

“Now, they’ve returned to where they belong,” helium told Neos Kosmos, proudly announcing that he’ll be the presumption of the recently published History of Nea Magnisia connected May 18.

The exemplary of the religion of Nea Magnisia, which nary longer exists today. It was built astir 1870–80 retired of adobe bricks and besides housed the village cemetery.

A beingness bridging continents

Born to exile parents from Hamidiye (Muratlı) successful the Magnesia portion of Asia Minor, Kolokotronis believes his surname traces backmost to the celebrated Kolokotronis household of the Peloponnese, some of whom migrated to Asia Minor and adopted the sanction Karampetsoglou during the Ottoman period.

He completed superior schoolhouse successful his village earlier the outbreak of WWII interrupted his education. After the war, successful 1945, helium was accepted into the American Farm School of Thessaloniki for a four-year people successful agriculture and agritech. In his third year, however, helium near to articulation the Army’s Technical School successful Athens, where helium trained for 5 years arsenic a vehicle and tank engineer, graduating with a top-tier mechanical qualification and discharging successful 1953.

The ‘manganopigado’, oregon tsark successful Turkish, was a type of irrigation system that drew water from a well utilizing the powerfulness of a horse. In Nea Magnisia, arsenic well arsenic successful Diavata and Lachanokipoi, there were astir 300 such gardening irrigation systems, arsenic artesian water was abundant successful the area.

The pursuing year, helium migrated to Australia, where his skills were enactment to use successful respective high-level technical roles — from αυτοκίνητο dealerships and subject craft factories to the Civil Aviation Department and hose companies. He worked arsenic a specialised motor mechanic and systems engineer.

In 1983, aft 30 years successful high-tech industry, Kolokotronis returned to education. He completed some Greek and Australian precocious schoolhouse equivalencies and pursued further studies successful electronics.

One of the exile houses successful the village. Next to it, a shed, a stable, a 2nd shed with an oven, and a space for storing hay, wood, and different farming tools were added. In the aboriginal years, portion of the location besides functioned arsenic a blacksmith and wheelwright workshop. There was besides a well with a manus pump successful the yard, which supplied water to the full neighborhood.

Still creating astatine 96

Today, Kolokotronis remains intellectually and creatively active. In his escaped time, helium paints, gardens, builds miniatures, reads, uses computers and goes connected agelong drives.

He precocious drove each the way to the Gold Coast arsenic a commemorative ode to his precocious wife with whom helium used to thrust there with each year.

Kolokotronis is besides a prolific self-published author, having written and released implicit 20 books recounting the various chapters of his bonzer beingness crossed two continents.

His bequest present lives connected not lone successful print, but besides done the miniature world helium painstakingly recreated — a tribute to the resilience, culture, and traditions of the Asia Minor Greeks who rebuilt their lives successful bluish Greece aft the 1922 Catastrophe.