Pinakates
Encyclopedia
Pinakates is a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 mountain village located 25 km east of Volos
Volos
Volos is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about 326 km north of Athens and 215 km south of Thessaloniki...

 in the Magnesia
Magnesia Prefecture
Magnesia Prefecture was one of the prefectures of Greece. Its capital was Volos. It was established in 1899 from the Larissa Prefecture. The prefecture was disbanded on 1 January 2011 by the Kallikratis programme, and split into the peripheral units of Magnesia and the Sporades.The toponym is...

 prefecture. Pinakates belongs since 2001 to the municipal unit of Milies
Milies
Milies is a village and a former municipality in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality South Pelion, of which it is a municipal unit. It is a traditional Greek mountain village, at a height of 400 m on Mount Pelion. It is 28 km from...

.

Etymology

Most probably the origin of the name refers to the activity of the first inhabitants who produced wooden plates, an article known in the local dialect as pinakia (πινάκια). Maybe the word has its roots in the Albanian language
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

.

Population

Year Population village Population municipal district
1991 - 326
1991 138 -
2001 182 312

Geography

The village is on the eastern slopes of the mountainous peninsula Pelion
Pelion
Pelion or Pelium is a mountain at the southeastern part of Thessaly in central Greece, forming a hook-like peninsula between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea...

. The area is dominated by olive trees, vineyards and apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...

 trees, the main source of income for most of the permanent residents. Higher up the mountain, there is an area only visited by hikers, hunters (of wild boar) and gatherers of mushrooms and herbs.

History

The village of Pinakates is first mentioned in the Modern Geography of Greece (Γεωγραφία Νεωτερική περί της Ελλάδο = Geografia Neoteriki peri tis Ellados) by Daniil Filippidis and Grigoriou Konstantas (Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 1791). At that time, the village comprised about 100 houses, but surely it was built much earlier.

In 1828, the village had 1,000 inhabitants. In 1860, the village counted 160 families and 800 residents. Pinakates joined the rest of Greece when Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....

was liberated in 1881. In the early 20th century, a school with 56 students was opened. One of the main benefactors of this school was a business man from Pinakates, Ioannis G. Sarafopoulos.

The main industry in Pinakates became the production of wine and oil. Also the culture of olives boosted the village's economy. Money from Greeks living in Egypt contributed to the development of the village.

Pinakates is considered to be one of the best preserved of the 24 villages in Pilion and therefore became a category 1-protected landmark. The village was so well preserved because until recently it was only accessible via one road which ends in the center of the village. All other roads could only be used on foot or by mule. Electricity came finally to the village in 1973 and a few years later a connection by bus with Volos was established.

The isolated position on the mountain side kept the village well preserved, but also almost caused its downfall. During the last decade of the previous century only five families lived in Pinakates during wintertime. Currently it counts about 150 people, although on the voting registers some 350 names are listed. However, a lot of them have moved to neighbouring villages.

Pinakates was an independent village until 2001, when it became a district of the municipality of Milies. Due to the limited number of children in the village it no longer has a school.
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