From the article in the newspaper “TO VIMA” 26.09.2010
The jars of Thrapsanos
We return to our original route towards Kasteli, now paying attention to the landscape with the hills against the backdrop of the peaks of Psiloritis. Another detour, to the right this time, brings us to Voni, in Crete of course, (2 km) and then to Thrapsano (2 km), a total of about 31 km from Heraklion. Thrapsano is a traditional Cretan village, a pottery center for the entire island. This is evidenced by the pots with jars drying in the sun at the entrance to the village. Almost all the young people of the village receive the secrets of the art from their fathers and do not reveal them to strangers. Its streets hide corners of tradition. It is worth the effort to reach the courtyard of the beautiful church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The icons of the Russian-style iconostasis were crafted on Mount Athos and are life-size. After all, a place where the sensitive poet of Erotokritos, Vitsentzos Kornaros, is said to have had his mansion, cannot help but be attractive.
Kostis Choulakis, one of the clay charmers here in Thrapsano, from a family of potters, knows the age of his art. Nothing prevents him from believing that he works like those who made the jars of Knossos. Besides, everything is intertwined in a magical web, as if there were no distance of thousands of years. Here, down in Galatas is Minos’s summer house, he says. The soil is the same, as is the water. Only the ovens for baking the utensils do not burn wood, but gas. Of course, they even operate traditionally. As for the wheel: “It’s a different art, my child, the traditional one with the foot and another with the electric one”…
