Through the Gorge

March to Athens

Day 147-LXXIII, from Αγρίνιο to Χρυσοβέργι, 21 km.

The gorge

Chrisovergi, April 2

Dear people,

The assembly has decided, and the official blog of our march brings the big news. “We go to Patras!”

The question came up in Amfilochia. Our proposed route doesn’t include Patras, but we could take a little detour sacrificing our margin to cross the gulf and touch the town.

I had good fun preparing a large cardboard map to illustrate the situation, together with the possibility to pass by the island of Aetoliko in the middle of a lagoon, which would cost us another day of our four day margin.

In Amfilochia we postponed the question, and yesterday evening in Agrinio I moderated the assembly that would have to take the decision.

Now, I could turn this into some kind of triumphant Bulletin de la Grande Armée, and say how the March to Athens has unanimously decided to take the bridge, to march on Patras and to to occupy the square for two days and three nights. But that wouldn’t be exactly how it happened.

As a matter of fact, it was a messy assembly, and I didn’t do much to create order out of chaos. The lagoon option had been branded as ‘revolutionary tourism’ by some, while many others didn’t feel the need to go to Patras. I myself rather fancied the tourist option, and I wouldn’t mind to bypass Patras in order to save our days of margin for the mountains and the metropolitan area of Athens.

We divided the options into four. Island and Patras, either one or neither, and after that the options got blocked one after another. Finally I formulated the only proposal that hadn’t yet been blocked. “We don’t go to the island, we do go to Patras, we spend two whole days there, and we continue to Nafpaktos with two days of margin remaining.”

For lack of alternatives, people agreed. We go to Patras. But since we are going, we better make something of it.

I have to admit, my mind wasn’t completely present in the moderation of the assembly. I was nurturing greater mythological schemes. Since we still hadn’t got any Greeks in the march, I was planning to abduct a local princess and bring her along to Athens, and then to Troy. She was sitting right beside me in the assembly. She had brought me ice cream and taken me to the concert the day before. And she had proven to be unpredictable, a quality that I value very highly.

“I want to get out of this place,” she had said.

“Then come along with the march, and take your camera. This opportunity won’t pass again.”

“I want to come, but I can’t. I have school.”

This morning she changed the scheme. Instead of coming along, she wanted me to stay, at least for tonight.

Up until now, neither the rain nor the cold, nor the mountains, nor sickness, nor the distance have ever prevented me from walking. In all three marches in which I have participated I never skipped a single leg. But like Oscar Wilde would say, “I can resist anything, except temptation.”

This morning I got very close to seeing the march off and remaining in the square of Agrinio. But I didn’t. I’m stronger than I used to be.

“You have school, I have march. I can’t stay,” I told my princess, and she gave me the disappointed face of a spoiled girl. She finally kissed me goodbye and trotted off. Sweet little sixteen.

La marcha sigue, cueste lo que cueste. The march goes on, whatever the cost. And today I feel like I could just keep on going. There’s a ridge of mountains ahead of us at the southern end of the plain of Agrinio. We cross through a narrow gorge. It’s like a giant vulva, excavated for millions of years by an ancient river that is no more.

The gorge is a gateway. On the other side, once again, there is the sea.

Smoke

March to Athens

Day 146-LXXII, Αγρίνιο.

Acampada Agrinio

Agrinio, April 1

Dear people,

When people say that Greece is in a deep crisis, they surely are not talking about Agrinio. This place is really flooded with money. It falls down from the sky like snow, and you have to wade your way through it with a shovel.

The money is condensed in all the bars and banks and flashy stores. Over here the anarchists are the one percent, and the 99% are the people sipping cocktails on the terraces.

Maybe I exagerate, just a bit. But it makes me wonder. “Where does all the money come from?”

Yesterday we were invited to attend an anarchist concert in one of the central squares of Agrinio. It was a good occasion to ask the big question.

Various people told me basically the same story. And it makes sense.

So, as I told you, the plains of Agrinio are a fertile agricultural ground where local farmers used to grow mainly tobacco. Then a couple of years ago, the EU has been showering the farmers with subsidies as an incentive to change their crops. Many farmers cashed in the subsidies and continued growing tobacco like before. In the same timeframe, the price of tobacco has multiplied in Greece because of the taxes. It used to be ridiculously cheap, and now it’s as expensive as anywhere else in Europe. So of course, there’s a thriving black market for home made tobacco. You can buy it at 15 euros a kilo, tax free. And the rest is still regularly processed and sold.

That is where all the money comes from. There is a wealthy class of large scale producers, and everyone that depends from them. They lead a good life on a provincial scale. But that doesn’t mean that people don’t feel the crisis.

They do. It’s awful. ‘Before the crisis we went to the bar and took two coffees. Now we take only one.’ So they say.

Still, for young people there is no future in Agrinio. Aside from the tobacco and olive oil industry, there is no possibility of a gratifying career. So they go away to Athens, or to Thessaloniki, or overseas. And they leave this little place to its continuous building frenzy, where the past gets cancelled out and destroyed to make way for an ever more ephimeral present.

Popular assembly in Agrinio

A Fragile World

March to Athens

Day 145-LXXI, from Στράτος to Αγρίνιο, 12 km.

Ritual sacrifice

Agrinio, March 31

Dear people,

Three ridges of hills near the river bend were the site of ancient Stratos. From here, the citizens of this town controlled the plain and the entire hinterland of Akarnania until the Romans founded the city of Nicopoli.

What remains today is the theatre and the outlines of the agora. I sit on my rock in the morning sun, right between the two, when the tourist commission of the march comes walking up the hill for a visit.

The agora of ancient Stratos

This town bears the same name as the modern village in the valley, but that’s about as far as similarities go.

We enter the theater, we stand on the stage and comrade Jose Miguel, the archeologist, mic-checks the acoustic. They hear him loud and clear up above.

The theater is a ruin. The seats and stairs have gone, many rocks have been recycled, and the remainder has been invaded by the vegetation. All over the hemicircle where people used to sit and cheer, there are flowers growing by the thousands.

Comrade archeologist in the ancient theater of Stratos

For me, and for others among us with a romantic soul, it couldn’t be better than this. But for José Miguel it’s different. He has studied too much antiquity already, his fingers are itching. He can’t help it. He would like to dig it all up, dust if off, and tell the story.

Alas, some stories are best when left untold.

After the sacrifice, resurrection...

The march breaks up camp and crosses the river into Aetolia. Today we go to town. The town is called Agrinio.

On the road we get honked almost continuously. The last time I witnessed something similar was when the Columna Norte was approaching Madrid. A car stops by, a window rolls down. “March to Athens?”

“That’s us.”

He gives a thumbs up and drives off. The voice of our march is spreading. It seems we have been on television after the demonstration in Preveza.

Arriving in Agrinio

We enter triumphantly in Agrinio. Local anarchists await us. We take the square without any problem with police.

I pitch my tent and take a little tour of the city. It turns out to be an alienating experience. From the looks of it, there’s money going around in this place. All the brands are present, the bars are hip, and aside from that there is little else. The buildings are very recent, they are quickly puzzled together with prefab concrete. It all looks extremely fragile.

In a couple of months time, this city will be different. The brands will have changed, the bars won’t be hip anymore, the buildings will be replaced by new ones that will last even less, etc.

If Agrinio were to be abandoned tomorrow, it would take only a few years for the city to crumble. In a few decades you won’t recognise it as a city any more, and in two thousand years there will be nothing left but polluted soil covered by vegetation. Not even a theater will remain, not even the outlines of the agora.

Agrinio is just an example. Our whole civilization is as fragile as this. It is going to crumble.

When people ask us what we propose as a solution, we say we don’t have any. We don’t propose socialism, or communism or anarchism, or any other -ism. All we want is to exchange ideas with people and think about something completely new.

Comrade Lorenzo

 

Comrade Nicolas

 

Comrade Blanca

 

The Old Man