PERSONAL PROJECTS: METSOVO 1900

Featuring reenactments of everyday life in Metsovo in the early 20th century, Myrto Papadopoulos photographs take us on a journey to a time of historic change that transformed the Pindus mountain range communities. Τhe photographs were taken in Metsovo in December 2014, for an innovative project showcasing the Metsovo Folk Art Museum, run by the Baron Michael Tossizza Foundation. 

Of the various races that inhabit the Balkan peninsula the Vlachs are in many ways one of the least known. […] At the present day they are to be found widely scattered over the more mountainous and remote parts of the peninsula from Acarnania in the south to as far north as the mountains of Bulgaria and Serbia.  

The position of the Vlach villages […] in districts rarely visited, the departure of the Vlachs from the plains in early spring before the time when travelling is most common, their use of a second language in all intercourse with the outer world and lastly the double meaning of the name Vlach in Modern Greek have all helped to restrict and confuse outside kknowledge of their life and conditions.  

(“The nomads of the Balkans”, Alan J. B. Wace - Maurice S. Thompson, Methuen, London, 1914)