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Out of the Balkans

Part 1: Out of the Balkans

Chapter 1, continued:
Eleni and Evangelia: Out of Thrace and the Black Sea

On the night of 30 July 1906, Anchialos burned. Bulgarian militia and mobs conducted a pogrom that resulted in the slaughter of four thousand of its six thousand Greek inhabitants.

Awakened by Sozopolis' church bells, Hristodul and Vasiliki Zissis wondered at the glow in the sky to the north, across the bay. In the days that followed their world disintegrated about them. They heard stories of the holocaust in Anchialos, of arson whose flames consumed homes and shops, and of murder and looting that had visited friends and family in the city of Pyrgos.

In Pyrgos, Hristodul and Vasiliki's daughter, Eleni, her husband, Stefan, were victims of the terror and violence of that night. Clinging to their baby, Evangelia, and carrying what few belongings they could, they joined Greek families who ran through the streets toward the docks and small boats that held hope of escape. Stefan stumbled and fell. The press of humanity trampled him to death and pushed Eleni and her child into the sea. Greek fishermen picked them out of the water and for several days carried them south through the Bosphorus, then west past Constantinople, across the Propontis, through the Hellespont and, finally, into the Aegean Sea.

With dread, and tears, and despair, Eleni retraced the route of her ancient ancestors. She was at sea with the crew of a fishing boat. A destitute widow with an infant and an unknowable future, she had one purpose ~ to survive.

Eleni and Evangelia never returned to the shores of Bulgaria. With thousands of other refugees they found their way to Greece. The Greek government, though impoverished by the war with Turkey, established Nea Anchialos (New Anchialos), a community near Volos for refugees from Anchialos. Eleni and Evangelia went to another settlement named Euxeinoupolis, near Almyro, south of Volos.(map / 74) Eight hundred families from Eastern Roumelia settled in Nea Anchialos, and an additional nine hundred made their way to Euxeinoupolis.(75)



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