author: Georgia Politis-Apostolakos
published in The Faris Newsletter, Issue 55, December 2011, pages 19-20
The first wheeled vehicles appeared in our region just 50 to 60 years ago. Before that, in the villages for their travels but also for the transport of things, they mainly used animals. They had mules, donkeys and the more privileged ones, horses.
So, the first wheeled vehicle that made its appearance was a cart. It was two-wheeled and drawn by horses. Its base was in Kaminia. Its original owner was Menis Theofilopoulos who then sold it to Georgios Politis, to whom it remained for many years. For a period of three to four years it was the only one in the area and served not only Kaminia but also all the surrounding villages. Therefore, that period was a good time for the owner, as it was in high demand and had no competition. As mentioned above, it was a two-wheeler and was pulled by one or two horses, which were also owned by the same one. He usually used one of them, depending on the load. If the load was heavy or the road was bumpy, he yoked both of the horses to it. He moved people or carried things, such as wood or olives at a price, which depended on various factors, such as the type of cargo and the distance it covered. To transport people, he charged about 100 drachmas per head and, if the distance increased, the cost varied slightly. Often, as he says, he would put several women together in the cart to take them to the fields to work, and on the way he got teased by everyone he met. From the west, he could go as far as Polovitsa and more rarely to Gorani and from the other side as far as Anogia. Kaminia – Xirocampi was one of the most common routes.
The best period in terms of work was the winter months, during the “olive season”. It was the golden period, as he transported workers to the fields for the harvesting olives, olives from the fields to the factories, and then the barrels with the oil from the factories to the houses. The cart could carry up to 500 kg of load. Exceptionally, when it carried olives, the price was not money, but for each 100 kilos of olives carried, he got 1 kilo of oil. An incident that he himself mentions is that one year, there was such a big quantity of oil, that he was constantly unloading olives of various people at the factory of Stratigis, as he was called. At one point, he saw Stratigis coming towards him in a rage, and cursing and shouting, he kicked him out of the factory, telling him among other things “…you, the way you’re going, you’ll take the factory from me…”, as he was working hard and with so many olives he had brought in, he was entitled to a large amount of oil.
Finally, his contribution to the creation of local roads in Kaminia and the surrounding villages, as well as to the reconstruction of the Kolopanas bridge, was also great. I got the information from the owner of the cart himself, Georgios Politis, son of Evangalos, 87 years old today.
I am honored to receive permission from the Katsoulakos family to translate and share articles from The Faris. Translation verification and corrections have been made by GreekAncestry.net. This is the fifth article of the ongoing series. Previous articles can be viewed here.
Spartan Roots (Σπαρτιατικές Ρίζες) 