KAVALA, THE OLDEST PORT CITY IN MAINLAND N. GREECE

At first it was just a rock. Precipitous, bare, dry of water and at the same time besieged by the sea from all sides.

It apparently received the first inhabitants 3000 years ago and they left behind pieces, fragments of clay vessels, which they made by hand, while much earlier (about 8000 years ago) on the beaches of today’s Kavala they started to create the first documented civilization people.

Evidenced from the 7th century BCE, ancient Neapolis began to travel with trade throughout the Aegean and this in turn reached the city – and then the Greeks and their own culture arrived. Nothing in Europe and the Balkans would be the same if the Thasians had not decided to build ancient Neapolis as their colony at this strategic point, crossed by all those wishing to exit the Aegean, approach the Balkan hinterland, roads to the East and escape to the West.

It is not widely known that from very early on it mints its own currency and becomes independent from its metropolis, that it becomes an important ally of the Athenians to the extent that the latter ask for and receive a loan from the Neapolitans, who have significant income from its port. The most ancient port city in the whole of mainland N. Greece with continuous habitation has enjoyed the privileges of the character it has had since almost the first moment. The Athenians do not forget the loyalty of the ancient Neapolitans and today one can find honorary resolutions expressing their gratitude to their ally in the Acropolis museum and the National Archaeological Museum.

And then the Macedonians and Philip II arrive – the city is weakened so as not to be a core threat as an Athenian ally and it is downgraded from an important port to a port, but of historical importance, to the new city that was born – Philippi. When the Romans come, Neapolis, which is now alive and with the ancient Egnatia road passing outside its walls, becomes the main reason for the world-historical changes that follow:
– the democratic Brutus and Cassius use it as their anchorage and supply port in the most important, according to historians, battle of the Roman world, against the oligarchs Octavian and Mark Antony. A battle that marks the transition from the democratic to the imperial period for Rome and its territories
– the arrival of a multitude of ancient Eastern and Egyptian, deity religions and traditions that leave their permanent marks and influence, not only on the entire region but also all over Europe. This happens with the arrival of the Apostle Paul as the first European stop on his tour – one of the events that takes place in the Greek area and defines the profile of an entire continent.

One can comfortably characterize the region in general and the city of ancient Neapolis, later Christoupolis and today’s Kavala, as a melting pot. A melting pot of people and cultures from the archaic times to the present day, where the locals, true to their humanitarian values ​​as people living by the sea and gazing at the open horizons, offer their help to those arriving from war zones.

The sea water is plentiful, but not the drinking water – probably the Romans first and then the Byzantines built and maintained one of the best preserved aqueducts in Europe to date. The Arches, which were destroyed by the Turks when they invaded in 1391, were reopened during the time of Suleiman the Magnificent and Lawgiver, while work was also carried out at the beginning of the 19th century.

The modern city of Kavala, in the recent past, was a miniature of Thessaloniki – a well-fortified port city (hardly falling into the hands of invaders), booming in trade due to tobacco, a small multicultural community, experiencing its expansion in 1864 , accepts thousands of refugees in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey and has a thriving Greek community, in whose artistic life two figures can be distinguished – the painter Umbertos Argyros and the poet Ioannis Konstantinidis, whose busts today adorn the area of ​​the municipal garden. The largest sculpture that adorns the city’s public space is that of its benefactor, Mohammed Ali, and thus the city has the privilege of boasting the work of another important artist, Konstantinos Dimitriadis (born in the old Stenimachos of Eastern Romilia). The statue was created in the sculptor’s studio in Paris and its transfer to the city in the late 1930s was certainly a great event.

Kavala has a pulse and hidden aspects even in the places one might not suspect – perhaps the only city to have neighborhoods and districts bearing a numerical designation (One Thousand and Five Hundred) as a name and a well-preserved Old Town with taverns where patrons they cannot even imagine that a tired sailor once arrived at the same spot, to leave his tribute to the goddess Virgin and her marble temple, which dominated the rock. Where today the Imaret adorns Kavala, 2500 years ago priests took care to accept the offerings from the travelers of the Aegean who arrived in the city.

Open horizons mean open arms. Kavala has always offered its own to anyone who opens their heart and mind to get to know it.

Ioannis Kiourtsoglou,
Certified tour guide