In the 1970s the only way to get around Anavra was by mule, and the nearest school, in Lamia, was six hours away. A few decades later Greek and foreign media, the BBC among them, were writing about the same village on the western slopes of Mount Othrys as one of the richest in Greece.
From Goura to Anavra
Until 1928 the village was called Goura. It lies 72 kilometres from Volos, at the edge of Magnesia, where Othrys leans towards Phthiotis. Forest spreads around it, and near the village are the springs of the Enipeas, the river that runs down to the plain of Farsala and flows into the Pineios. The Enipeas covers its first kilometres through Anavra itself.
It was always a village of herders. Almost everyone lived from animals and the land, and that did not change. The way of doing it did.
How the village changed
From the 1990s the president of the community, Dimitris Tsoukalas, began applying for European funds for everything that was missing. Working beside him, as an unpaid technical adviser, was his wife, the architect Machi Karali. Within a few years the village had roads and squares, a school, a clinic, a gym, three livestock parks outside the settlement so that the animals no longer lived among the houses, a model slaughterhouse, a folklore museum and an environmental and cultural park of 240 stremmata.
The symbol of the change is the wind farm, with 20 turbines above the village. For years it brought income to the community and covered part of the residents' electricity.
What remained after Kallikratis
The story does not only end well. With the Kallikratis local government reform Anavra became part of the Municipality of Almyros, and the plans that were left, a small hydroelectric plant on the waters of the Enipeas and a district heating network for every house, were frozen and finally cancelled. The population, which had held up better than most mountain villages, fell from 584 residents in the 2011 census to 405 in the 2021 census.
It remains one of the few examples in Greece where a remote mountain village planned its own future. That is why the trip here says more than the landscape alone.
If you go
You can start from Almyros and climb up Othrys, or come from the Phthiotis side. In the village you will find the folklore museum and the waters of the Enipeas. In winter Anavra is often cut off by snow, so ask about the road before you set off. The same river, further down, passes under the stone bridge on the plain of Farsala.
