Kastellórizo
's
official
name,
Meyísti
(biggest),
seems
more an
act of
defiance
than a
statement
of fact.
While
the
largest
of a
tiny
group of
islands,
it is
actually
the
smallest
of the
Dodecanese,
over
seventy
nautical
miles
from its
nearest
Greek
neighbour
(Rhodes)
but
barely
more
than a
nautical
mile off
the
Turkish
coast at
the
narrowest
straits.
At night
its
lights
are
quite
outnumbered
by those
of the
Turkish
town of
Kas¸,
which
lies
across
the bay
and with
whom
Kastellórizo
generally
has
excellent
relations.
Until
the
early
1900s
there
were
almost
14,000
people
here,
supported
by a
fleet of
schooners
that
transported
goods,
mostly
timber,
from the
Greek
towns of
Kalamaki
(now
Kalkan)
and
Andifelos
(Kas¸)
on the
Anatolian
mainland
opposite.
But the
withdrawal
of
island
autonomy
after
the 1908
"Young
Turk"
revolution,
the
Italian
seizure
of the
other
Dodecanese
in 1912
and an
inconclusive
1913-1915
revolt
against
the
Turks
sent the
island
into
decline.
A French
occupation
of
1915-21
prompted
destructive
shelling
from the
Ottoman-held
mainland,
a
harbinger
of worse
to come.
Shipowners
failed
to
modernize
their
fleets
upon the
advent
of steam
power,
preferring
to sell
ships to
the
British
for the
Dardanelles
campaign,
and the
new
frontier
between
the
island
and
republican
Turkey,
combined
with the
expulsion
of all
Anatolian
Greeks
in 1923,
deprived
any
remaining
vessels
of their
trade.
During
the
1930s
the
island
enjoyed
a brief
renaissance
when it
became a
major
stopover
point
for
French
and
Italian
seaplanes,
but
events
at the
close of
World
War II
put an
end to
any
hopes of
the
island's
continued
viability.
When
Italy
capitulated
to the
Allies
in the
autumn
of 1943,
a few
hundred
Commonwealth
commandos
occupied
Kastellórizo,
departing
of their
own
accord
in
spring
1944 -
leaving
the
island
deserted
and
vulnerable
to the
attentions
of
pirates.
In early
July, a
harbour
fuel
dump
caught (or
was set
on) fire
and an
adjacent
arsenal
exploded,
taking
with it
more
than
half of
the two
thousand
houses
on
Kastellórizo.
Even
before
these
events
most of
the
population
had left
for
Rhodes,
Athens,
Australia
(especially
Perth)
and
North
America.
Today
there
are just
342
official
residents
here by
the last
census (with
only 250
actually
living
permanently
on
Kastellórizo),
largely
maintained
by
remittances
from
over
30,000
emigrants
and by
subsidies
from the
Greek
government,
which
fears
that the
island
will
revert
to
Turkey
should
their
numbers
diminish
any
further.
Yet
Kastellórizo
has a
future
of
sorts,
thanks
to expat
"Kassies"
who have
begun
renovating
their
crumbling
ancestral
houses
as
retirement
or
holiday
homes.
Each
summer,
the
population
is
swelled
by
returnees
of
Kassie
ancestry.
Occasionally
they
celebrate
traditional
weddings
in the
Áyios
Konstandínos
cathedral
at
Horáfia,
which
incorporates
ancient
columns
from
Patara
in Asia
Minor.
Access
has also
improved
since
the late
1980s:
an
airport
(domestic
flights
only)
was
completed,
and the
harbour
dredged
to
accommodate
larger
ferries,
though
the
island
has yet
to be
designated
an
official
port of
entry to
Greece,
which
causes
problems
for both
yachties
and
conventional
travellers
crossing
from
Turkey.
You
will
either
love
Kastellórizo
and stay
a week,
or crave
escape
after a
day; its
detractors
dismiss
the
island
as a
human
zoo
maintained
by the
Greek
government
for the
edification
of
nationalists,
while
partisans
celebrate
an
atmospheric,
barely
commercialized
outpost
of
Hellenism
