Spyros Kasimatis intervenes on the issue of Chytra

The man who has linked his professional activity with the sea and Kythera and has highlighted the cave of Chytra is positioning himself on the controversial decision of EEPKA.

«Good evening to all. I think it is unnecessary to introduce what I am going to talk about.

So. I wonder if anyone has wondered why we have come to the point today where we are talking about leasing the cave in Chitra.

Is it because somewhere there in 1989-90, someone who was considered crazy at the time, started together with Panagiotis Sougiannis, the tourist tours in the cave?;

Is it because someone invested his soul, body, money and more than 25 years of his life in making Chytra one of the most emblematic tourist spots of Kythera?;

Is it because this person has promoted Kythera and Chytra countless times in tourist shows, specials, articles that reach all corners of the earth?;

So, if this person, back in 1989, had finally decided to just go fishing instead of dealing with Chytra, would we not be talking about the cave of Chytra today?;

So, since that someone is me, I can't help but wonder, too, what kind of connotations this decision by the Home Office has. Because it is almost a personal matter.

And why do I say personal affair. As a professional on the island, I have always put, and still do, our island first and foremost. With personal hard work and passion and always with safety in mind, I have guided thousands of people over the years to the cave of Chitra to experience this natural beauty and stay with the most positive memory of the island. So much so that Chytra (and its cave) became identified with my name. ’I want to go to Chitra,« someone says. »Find Spyros,« they will mostly reply.

I regularly pay the passenger fees to the Municipality of Kythera through the Port Fund (something that the other two professionals who came to the island last year, due to a different status, do not pay) and I always try, and sometimes, under adverse conditions, to do the best possible for our place and our visitors, as a professional. Sure, mistakes may have been made and I will be the first to admit them and make sure they are corrected and not repeated.

One would expect, therefore, from these two sides (professionals - island stakeholders) to have synergy, mutual support and a common vision.

Imagine, then, my surprise when I was informed of the decision of the Chamber regarding Chytra. Imagine, even more, my amazement when I was informed of the decision to collect money in the form of rent for boats ONLY at the Piso Gali Kapsali, which means over 2000€ per year for me as I have no option to move my boat elsewhere. I wonder what criteria someone used to come up with this amount when the price in Athens for the same reason - and with more facilities such as storage in a private area, insurance, compensation in case of damage - is about 1200€?;

It will also, he says, immediately remove ropes, moorings and buoys. They don't even know that, at the moment, there is none of that there because it only relates to three months in the summer. They are laughing and the stones are laughing.

And I ask. If, logically, the Coast Guard handles the removal, since that is what the Home Office decided, will the same apply to everyone, as the law requires? Will all of the people's reeds on the island, most of which are permanently installed, be removed? Or, incidentally, does it only apply to mine, which serves other boats, for their safety, in the summer? And to put it more popularly, as a true Tsiriyotian... The reeds will not be caught in your mouth. The reeds.

And I come to ask. If, for example, I rent the cave of Chitra (I know, it sounds absurd, but that's what we seem to be dealing with), I have the right to use it, right? Other professionals operating in the Chitra will necessarily be excluded, right? George Lamboglou with his diving school will show off which cave to tourists? Plato's? The other professionals who come to the island - because professional activity is considered, in this way, and anyone who hires a professional boat - which Chytra will they approach to admire? The speed in their kitchen? By what right does the Home Office decide on the financial destruction of the island's professionals? What is legal is moral? Because that's what this is all about. And let me say, at this point, that I do not intend to bid on this theatre of the absurd.

Oh, and the other good one, where are you taking it? That the tourist will not be charged the amount but only the professional? It's dangerously ignorant to bring that up by someone who, apparently, has no idea what product pricing and running a business means. That you will eat your pastiche in your tavern but the price will not include a percentage of the business costs. Oh, man, where are we going? Where are we going?;

I requested a copy of the legal adviser's opinion setting out the decision of the Home Committee. I am waiting.

The questions are many. And the speculation about what might be going on behind the scenes even more so.

I'm still trying to understand how decisions and values arise within those decisions. Without any professional background in the tourism industry, without even a formal advisory directive from an expert, Home makes up its price list on the fly. Whatever explanations were given were, at the very least, funny, and anyone who understands what it means to be professionally active in tourism acknowledges this.

It states that it is actively supporting the professionals because it has postponed for three months the collection of the advance payment. It also states that the prices were set on the basis of increased tourist traffic compared with previous years. The pebbles are laughing now.

Probably the whole of Enkhorios lives in a parallel universe where not only has tourism and the professional activity around it not been affected but where visitors have increased and had a positive impact on the tourism of Kythera. In this parallel universe it is, for them, reasonable to rent a cave (a cave!) at a price of «Gee, how much to put in Chytra? 8000€ don't we have the beaches? 5000€ is good? Should I leave it?».

Enchorios, supposedly, is from the Kytherians for the Kytherians. And in these relentless times, it chooses to crush Kytherian professionals financially and serve vested interests. And not of the Kytherian people, in this case. And it's obvious. And it's never too late for all of us who are concerned about tourism on the island to sit down and discuss what is best for our country, based on facts and realistic conditions. And it's never too late for the mea culpa, gentlemen of the Chamber.

Up to this moment of writing this text, I cannot understand why such aggressive behaviour towards me. Because, let's not kid ourselves, the Chitra issue has my name in a footnote. And I see, with some relief, what people on the island are saying in public who are speaking out against this absurdity and this unseemly attack on me and other professionals. But, if people didn't come out to support us, I dare not imagine what would happen. We would have a Hytra that Spyros would necessarily not go to anymore, with all that this implies for the tourist traffic of the attraction, only one professional would have access and the rest of you cut your heads off, die already, we don't care. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

The Tsirigians know well what Chytra means to them and to me. And no matter how much some people try to eliminate me and the rest of us who give a damn about what is called tourism in Kythera, I have to tell them that all they achieve is to expose themselves. The same people who seem to have no idea what it means to love my place. Because a place is not just rocks and seas and fields set aside for exploitation.

Place is people. And people only go forward together when they are looking in the same direction. Otherwise, they are scattered bodies shaking their heads. And in a place we don't want heads that make noise, that create «solutions» to create problems. Thanks but, like I imagine many others like me, I'll pass.

I'll be here. I'll be here.

Sincerely,

Spyros (the one from Chytra, you know)»