When Niki suggested I should come here with you today, I was surprised.
What's interesting about me telling you about a hotel?
It would be more interesting if I offered you some invitations.
But this proposal made me think again about why and how Kinsterna was created
And some of the thoughts, which are essentially a part of my life, I'll share with you.
I was born in the village Koulentia, a hilly village, 20 km from Monemvasia, two and a half hours on foot
And I say on foot because up until 1960 the village had no electricity, water, phone, as they used to say, not even a car.
What I remember from the village and the fields, is old buildings scattered all around
Which slowly crumble and disappear. And for many of them, I remember, the elders had to tell us various stories.
The village is inhabited since at least 1300
When I left the village I was 9 years old, but I took with me the love for Nature
And the strong sense of hospitality that was there. For us the stranger was a holy person.
I studied Civil Engineering at the Metsovio University
I dealt with the construction of various projects
But, among other things, I worked with, it happened, I don't know, maybe I pursued it
The construction and reconstruction, restoration in other words, of many old buildings
Like the Bodossaki Hall, the Historical Archive of Hydra, the Castel of Rhodes to become the meeting of the EEC, the Greek Embassy in Bucharest
The Theatre of the Society of Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki to become European Capital of Thessaloniki.
In the 90s I decided to restore my house that was in my father's farm, at the Megalo Perivoli
Lying, as you can see, in the middle of nowhere
At the same time I made the cisterns, the fountain and our old threshing
The restoration of the house was done with the minimum interference.
The furnishings and equipment, if you go inside, refer to a house of the early 20th century.
An article...
Sorry
An article in the newspaper "Kathimerini", in 2002, by Mrs Giannaros, there was a group of journalists who were writing good things, not just those ...
Which says that the Nature's El Dorado is in the Peloponnese and especially in the area of ​​my village
As you see there, the village is mentioned
Made me love the place even more and concern myself with it
Together with the Association of the Village
We constructed 33 km of paths, some of which were from the Classical period and some of the Byzantine period.
At the same time we made a study of a diving park here.
I have to point out that the fishes in diving parks are not to be fed or killed, just to be looked at.
Also, today we prepare a study to declair the three villages that are nearby
Very old Byzantine villages, to declair them "Traditional Communities"
In 2003 I was informed that a large estate of the Kapitsini family, a famous family of Monemvasia, was for sale.
Where it has many olive trees, orange groves and some rubble.
Indeed, the property had olive trees and large garden.
But I loved the rubble. Loved the large cistern, with the columns around, the fireplaces above
The sun porches which overlook the castle and the sea
And of course, I was impressed by the sizeable eucalyptus which are, frankly, monuments of Nature
And were there in 1928 and Constantine Maleashas commemorate on his painting "Monemvasia".
Having experience on old buildings, I realized that this building, along with 40 acres of the property, is unique.
In Greece and the Peloponnesian area.
This is because the rulers in the Peloponnese, and generally in Greece, lived in castles.
The fear of robbers, pirates, forced them to live in the castle and had to land their fields.
The mansion, having a "Π" shape fortification, having a large cannon, adjacent to the castle of Monemvasia
Many loopholes here, it has many loopholes, but most importantly had a spring inside the building that provided safety.
The building is lost in the depths of the history of Byzantine and Venetian times, I do not know exactly when
We know that in 1821 the owner was Ibrahim Bey, one of the beys who signed the surrender of Monemvasia
And then it was purchased by the Kapitsini family.
When I bought the estate, I decided immediately to cultivate the land and plant trees, the old trees that had dried
And we knew from the old contracts that were there in 1821
At the same time, in an area of ​​20 acres across the street, we planted a vineyard, 20 acres of native varieties and especially the "Monemvasia" variety.
It is really touching, 15 days ago we opened a barrel of "Malvasia Monemvasia" wine
"Malvasia" was the Venetian name of Monemvasia
The wine was patented recently, after much effort, as Protected Designation of Origin of High Quality
It was produced in Monemvasia in 1300, the Venetians spread it throughout the Mediterranean
And now it is produced in 15 countries I think, 13 areas of the Mediterranean which claimed the name.
Fortunately we won.
We decided to save the mansion, and at the same time make our region, that is unique to us, known.
So, we revived the mansion in order to build a high-level hotel that provides a unique experience to visitors.
We chose as partners excellent engineers and labourers. I decided to do a faithful restoration.
And to use traditional construction methods.
The materials used were always local and old materials. You can see that our floors are mortar slates, as they did in the older days
The roof is reeds and cypress trees like they did many years ago, and generally we used anything old, like old tiles, limestone, etc.
Also, we integrated any old materials, as I used to and still collect many of them, and we integrated them in the house.
But what we tried to do is to highlight the dominant element of the mansion, which is the water.
Water comes from the great spring, Avlaki, goes to the tank and from the tank to water the orchards
Sure, we made changes to a minimum.We changed uses of space.
The old oil mill was turned into a lounge, the old prison became a nice room.
So we created 27 rooms with all public areas, spa, library, pantry and other
The equipment and furnishings are a combination of old items, old elements and modern design objects
Which, we believe, serve this historic building.
Here you will allow me to make a parenthesis.
You will ask, how about the bureaucracy. Unbelievable, we met incredible bureaucracy.
Sadly 3-4 years and more have gone by and nothing has changed. I am trying to make an investment to support its operation
The simplest thing, to build houses for rent
In available adjacent space. There is no objection from anywhere, no Service, no one says no, the simplest thing.
We have tried, started...
This effort, and I'll go a little further, and will return
We tried ....
(Applause)
What I'm telling you is for real.
We started trying about a year ago, maybe longer, to get to the point to submit the Planning permission.
Here are the services that are involved, the moves being made, we haven't passed through this barb wire yet
Hopefully in two or three months we will be able to go there, the Urban Planning, where another story begins, this is the reality.
To finish this, I can tell you that the issue is much more serious.
I do not agree with others that there is a centralized state, there is no aggregate or decentralized state.
The state, I believe, is feudal.
If you think for a moment instead of fief land, as references to feudalism, fiefs of land is a part of the state mechanism
I think that characterizes the actual management structure we have today, particularly in the region.
But the question is really deep, however, I'm steping into other fields, not moving any further
Between serious and funny, I'd like to give a few guidelines to prospective investors, if any.
The first is that you should forget you will take any of these licenses, the simplest one, if you are not there yourself at the services.
This is necessary.
Also, it is good to have local partners.
Along the road you will meet unreasonable demands. Do not try, for God's sake, to fight them, you can't fight them
You' ll look to override them,
Honestly, I'm not saying it because... The timetables you will set, because I've had trouble with that, too, right? And I deal with these things
In the timetables, where it says "day" put "week", where "week", "month" and where "month" put 5-6 to be close to reality.
This is reality.
I want you to think that there are some independent fiefs, subject to nowhere, not controlled by anyone, and they do what they want.
For example, I will just say one, somewhere there is the Forestry, somewhere there.
It is completely independent.
Allow me to go back a little, I made an omission
Let me say that, beyond the old house, we made a significant recovery in the functions of the mansion.
We believed that the house should be complete.
So, we rebuilt all the old functions, we cultivate our gardens
The oil, you see, is from the old horse-drawn, hand oil mill
We press grapes, produce must and from stefyla we pull tsipouro.
Sometimes we make soap, and we always have our own bread from the old oven, kneaded by hand.
I mean, the whole effort that we did, was meant to complete the old house
But building alone and gardens and features are not enough. The hotel is a living thing.
So we chose staff who will love the hotel.
So, 25 young people, mainly from area, without prior experience in similar job to avoid bad experiences.
Were indeed trained to the standard specification that the stranger, the visitor is our guest.
And I believe, that feeling passes to our guests as well.
I think his effort we did was recognized
Has been recognized and awarded by many valid foreign magazines and newspapers.
But, what for us is very pleasing, is the acceptance by our visitors.
Who come from different parts of the world and always have to say a good word for the effort we made.
Here we will go into another topic.
It's a fact that we have many old buildings, old castles, thank goodness we had so many Raiders, and so we have a long history.
Unfortunately, our castles crumble, old buildings, besides castles, are being destroyed and become a pile of rubble
The State did not maintain them, nor can preserve or restore everything.
But the solution is given by Monemvasia.
In 1952 an enlightened archaeologist didn't declare, as everyone wanted, Lower Town an archaeological site.
So the private sector entered, built houses, guest houses and now the Lower City is a living castle.
In contrast to the Upper City, besides Hagia Sophia here, the rest slowly, you see, has collapsed, even the walls.
The proposal we have is to give back our castles to re-inhabit them
Mystras, Methoni, Akronafplia, let them be allocated for 50-100 years, individuals can come and invest in homes, guest houses
With that money, Archaeology Service, will be able to restore the remaining public buildings, public roads and whatever else they want
This proposal was adopted recently by the Peloponnese Region and I hope it will become a reality because this way
It is the only way to save all our history, to bring investment and also to attract a high quality tourism.
Finally I would like to answer some questions that I am usually asked
Regarding the building. Its name.
The word "cistern" is a reborrowing. Derived from the ancient Greek word "cyst", it means underground storage tank
and "sterna", Roman word, was the "reservoir" and is a global word now.
The second, how long it took. Three years of construction.
At the same time of course, it was also the time that preceded the construction.
The cost. It went well over budget.
We contractors say that if you want to build your own house, do not build it yourself
Give it to another contractor so as to be able to control both cost and time.
But I built it as if it was my own house.
Finally, return on investment is not going to happen.
This, fortunately, we knew from the beginning.
We are really happy though, because we actually did what we planned and dreamed. Thank you.
(Applause)