Separated from Macedonia to the west by the Néstos River and from (Turkish) Eastern Thrace by the Évros River and its delta, Western Thrace is the Greek state's most recent acquisition. The area was under effective Greek control from 1920. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) confirmed Greek sovereignty and also sanctioned the forced evacuation of 390,000 Muslims, principally from Macedonia and Epirus, in exchange for more than a million ethnic Greeks from Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor (both now part of the modern Turkish state). But the Muslims of Western Thrace, in return for a continued Greek presence in and around Constantinople, were exempt from the exchanges and continue to live in the region.

 

Thrace was originally inhabited by a people with their own, non-Hellenic, language and religion. From the seventh century BC onwards it was colonized by Greeks, and after Alexander's time the area took on a strategic significance as the land route between Greece and Byzantium. It was later controlled by the Roman and Byzantine empires, and after 1361 by the Ottoman Turks.

Nowadays, out of a total population of 360,000, there are around 120,000 Muslims, made up (approximately) of 60,000 Turkish-speakers , 40,000 Pomaks and 20,000 gypsies . These figures are disputed by Turkish Muslims who put their numbers alone at something between 100,000 and 120,000. The Greek government lumps all three groups together as "a Muslim minority" principally of Turkish descent, and provides all of them with Turkish-language education (despite the fact that the Pomaks speak a language very similar to Bulgarian). Greek authorities also point to the hundreds of functioning mosques, the Turkish-language newspapers and a Turkish-language radio station in Komotiní as evidence of their goodwill. However, since 1968 only graduates from a special Academy in Thessaloníki have been allowed to teach in the Turkish-language schools here - thus (deliberately) isolating Thracian Turks from mainstream Turkish culture - and on various occasions the Greek authorities have interfered with Muslim religious appointments. In 1991, the Greeks appointed a new Muslim leader in Xánthi, without consulting the Muslim community.

There is no doubt in the minds of local Turks and Pomaks that in secular matters, too, they are the victims of discrimination . Muslim villages, they say, receive less help from the state than Greek villages; until the late 1990s a few were still without electricity, and many lacked proper roads. Muslim schools are underfunded; Muslims are unable to join the police force; and it is extremely difficult for them to buy property or get bank loans - although most ethnic Turks do also acknowledge that they are still materially better off than their counterparts in Turkey.

There have been occasional explosions of intercommunal violence, and matters have only worsened since the reincorporation, in neighbouring Bulgaria, of the Turkish minority into the commercial and political life of that country, with the Greeks becoming increasingly aware of the potential for unrest. In 1991 the Greek government put forward a plan to demilitarize the whole of Thrace, including Bulgarian and Turkish sectors. The plan received a positive reply from the Bulgarian government, but, ominously, Turkey reserved its position, and Greece remains fearful of Turkish agitation in Western Thrace that might lead to a Cyprus-type military operation where Turkish forces "come to the assistance" of an "oppressed" minority. The Turkish consulate at Komotiní has long been considered a conduit for fifth-column activities, with incumbent consuls regularly expelled by Greece for "activities incompatible with diplomatic status". These activities constitute not espionage, but alleged attempts to foment local disturbances. Occasionally the Greek secret service has been accused of playing rougher, as in the case of the outspoken former MP for Thrace, Ahmet Sadiq, who was killed in an allegedly "manufactured" road accident in 1995.

As an outsider you will probably not notice the intercommunal tensions, but you will not be able to avoid the many military installations in the border zones of the province. However, there are mixed villages where Muslims and Greeks appear to coexist quite amicably, and Thracians, both Muslim and Orthodox, have a deserved reputation for hospitality.

Compared to the rest of the mainland, there is little tangible to see, and most travellers take a bus straight through to Alexandhroúpoli , for the ferry to Samothráki, or head straight on to Istanbul . But Thrace's many rulers left some mark on the area, and there are a few well-preserved monuments, most significantly the remains of the coastal cities of Abdera, south of Xánthi , Maroneia, southeast of Komotiní , the regional capital, and Mesembria, west of Alexandhroúpoli - Greek colonies in the seventh century BC that were abandoned in Byzantine times when the inhabitants moved inland to escape pirate raids. Otherwise, it is the landscape itself that holds most appeal, with the train line forging a circuitous but scenic route below the foothills of the Rodhópi mountains: the best stretch is the Néstos valley between Paranésti and Xánthi. Unfortunately, many of the towns and villages have lost their charm, owing to unattractive twentieth-century architecture, but if you make time to explore the backstreets or venture up to tiny, isolated villages in the Rodhópi mountains, you'll find an atmosphere quite unlike any other part of Greece.