Kalamaria

What I can see

The municipality of Kalamaria is one of the most populous in Thessaloniki, with about 92,000 inhabitants. There are two versions of its name’s origin. According to the first version, the wider area was originally called “Kali Meria” (Good Side), as written in a Byzantine document of the Monastery of Xenophon in 1083, and the name gradually became Kalamaria over the centuries. In the second version, the name comes from the names “Skala” and “Meria”. Skala was the name of the Byzantine naval base, and the Byzantine administration (around 1300) called it the “Captaincy of Kalamaria”. Today, Kalamaria is considered a good area of the city, with some interesting cafes and restaurants, some of which become bars late at night.

What I can't see

Initially a huge area from the eastern walls of the city to Nea Moudania was referred to as Kalamaria. Today, this area includes the municipality from Karabournaki to the beach of Aretsou. It was sparsely populated until 1922, when it was inhabited en masse by Pontian and Asia Minor refugees (Greeks refugees after the Greek- Turkish war). The first refugees came in 1920 from Georgia, with the Pontians settling mainly in the centre of the present municipality, while those from the Asia Minor (present day Turkey) settled in other coastal areas. The refugees gave the names of the places where they came from (eg Nea Krini, Nea Michaniona etc) to the areas where they settled. Next to the aristocratic Avenue of the Countryside, the area became full of refugee camps. Refugee fishermen from Rysio in Asia Minor settled on the beach of Aretsou (which is why Aretsou was also named Rysion Alieon), and for many years they were the main providers of the fish market of Thessaloniki. In the 1960s, Aretsou was transformed into a recreational beach. After the 1917 Thessaloniki fire, Greek nationalists burned down the Jewish slum of Campbell in Kalamaria, where about 220 families lived in tents, in an event that came to be known as Campbell’s Pogrom.

 

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