Every year on the 25th of March whole Greece is celebrating. In every school children create a parade and theatre plays or other presentations to the topic 25th of March. In the cities there are bigger parades and the Greek flag is present everywhere. But what is this exciting day about?
In 1453 after many years the Ottomans finally took over the Byzantine Empire. So Greece was under Ottoman authority over 400 years. Not till the 19th century they started to work against the Turkish oppression. They built small politic groups, which worked secretly first, to prepare for the revolution against the rule of the Turks. On the 25th of March in 1821 they started the revolution and this day is seen as the start of the Greeks’ lib.
Also this year the schools prepared celebrations. They happened already one day before the national holiday. In the third primary school they showed a theatre play and traditional Greek dances. This time we helped them to create and craft costumes and props. We spend the whole previous week measuring, cutting, gluing and painting. And the children did a great performance. They wore nice costumes, had even steels and the children dressed up as Turks had a drawn mustache in their face.
In the same way the second primary school, where we assist, too, did a beautiful celebration with music, dances and children playing several instruments.
Then, on the 25th of March, we went to Chios City to see the big parade.
Again, many schools from Chios were represented by the best students and also different clubs, like the sport club, the scouts and the club for traditional Greek dances were marching in the parade. We also could see the army, the police, the captain school, representatives of the church and even some from the municipality.
The families of the parade’s participants were so excited to see their relatives marching and cheered a lot for them. We took again many photos and saw some familiar faces – children from the primary school who walked for their clubs. So, in the end it was again a very nice experience for us to see how the Greeks celebrate their country, the achievements in the history and their family.
To see all pictures go into our gallery!
