Severe scenery, simple people: Lemnos has a minimalistic beauty at all levels. Islanders of authentic finesse, who consider themselves to be descendants of Argonauts, kindly and hospitable. They move completely in their own slow rhythms, without anxiety that deplores the dwellers of big cities.
Most of the people of Lemnos, from ancient years, are occupied mostly with agriculture and cattle-breeding.
The Asia Minor element dominates in some villages, while several of their dwellers found there a refuge after their persecution from the opposite coastline and their houses.
Emigration
It is said that most of prosperous people of Lemnos left the island in 1770, together with their families, in order to survive from atrocities by troops of Hassan Chatzis Jetzaerlis, and they took refuge in Egypt, the then “promised land”, where they made a great fortune.
In Alexandria, people of Lemnos excelled as cotton dealers. Sometime they brought and planted the specific seed to the island, the land of which has the necessary surface waters for its development, and since then Lemnos became a centre of cotton production. The harvesting had taken place with hands for many years, but systematic cultivation has stopped for a long time past, despite the efforts of some enlightened people to bring it back experimentally for creating a fine seed.
In the fifties, people of Lemnos emigrated per hundreds, mainly to Australia.
Kechagiades (Cattle-breeders)
In Lemnos, since very old times, the social structure of each place was characterized by the presence of traditional cattle-breeder. So, Kechagiades, princes of grasslands and sovereigns of flocks, settled into neighboring beautiful folds, in order to take care of animals, and were occupied with the cultivation of land.
Sponge-fishers of Lemnos
People of Lemnos weren’t only people of land. Fishery and processing of natural sponge flourished for many years in the island and even today you may meet one of the last sponge-fishers in the café of some village, who will share with you his experiences. This art doesn’t exist anymore in the island, but the museum of Sponge-fishing in Koutali has many things to show you.
Women of Lemnos
Many people say that these women are endowed with the charm of Circe, who herself devised it to them, when she visited their island.
It’s certain that they always take care of themselves and their dressing, while they keep something from the tradition of matriarchy.
A note
• Alcamenes, a sculptor of antiquity from Lemnos, made a pediment of Acropolis and people of Lemnos are proud of it.
• The copy of the famous statue of Pheidias, Athena from Lemnos, of Acropolis’s Propylaea, decorates today the Museum of Dresdi. The statue represents Athena holding a skull in her hand.
• In the Museum of Myrina, it’s worth seeing the Sirens of the 6th B.C. century, which were found in the Sanctuary of Hephaestia.