Guide of Eastern Macedonia & Thrace

The museum was founded on February 1995 in Komotini. In 2004, it was transferred to the village of Thrylorio of the Municipality of Komotini, 9 km far from the city. It is housed in an area of 65 square metres, where more than 300 items are on exhibit.

It is an ethnological – technological museum with a unique collection in Greece and is among the few relevant museums in Europe. The exhibited items come from the three different ethnic groups of the wider Thrace, i.e. the Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish. Visitors may as well find several baskets from the countries of the Peninsula of Haemus.

Massive groups of Roma were living (or wandering) throughout the region of Thrace and they were weaving tens of thousand of baskets until the 1960’s. The appearance of plastic items and the socio-economic restructuring of the country gradually led to the decay of the basketry, as it occurred with all the range of traditionally Romany professions (tinsmiths, blacksmiths, etc). The first Roma groups that appeared in the area, probably around the 11th century, continued the local tradition and certain basket types (bee skeps, muzzles etc) that were created until a few years ago, derived directly from the Byzantine basketry.

In the museum, visitors can see baskets weaved with different materials and weaving styles. In modern times, the main material still in use is the cane together with the osier, while the willow tree is more common in baskets destined for urban use because it is more flexible and beautiful. In earlier times, agricultural activities required the use of more durable materials like the wild acacia or the cornel-tree. People from Pontus as well as the Pomaks, both living in the mountains, used more the wood of the hazel-tree (cut in strips), which is extremely durable. The artistic creation of the Eastern Thracians offered fine examples of domestic use baskets made with corn leaves. Visitors can also see the row material used by the basket makers: canes, osiers, willow trees, etc. Displayed next are the tools of the basket makers. The basket divider with a triple opening in the front and a quadruple in the back is a technological invention of a restless artisan. Displayed, in the same unit are the different phases of the weaving of a tobacco basket, which is the most characteristic basket type in Thrace. Furthermore, fine examples of baskets from northern (Bulgarian) Thrace are exhibited, some of which are made with sticks of a special wood in beautiful colours. The mechanism for peeling this special wood is one of the few technological inventions used in the basket weaving. This section follows the exhibition of the Roma baskets: bee skeps, a fishing basket, a basket for carrying stones from Didymoteicho (made with the wood of the wild acacia), which is the most durable exhibit of the collection, etc. The visitor’s attention is drawn to the oldest basket of the collection. It is a well-preserved domestic-use basket made in Michalitsi of Northern Thrace in 1904 and transferred on an ox-cart to Greek Thrace by the refugees in 1992. In the same unit, there is an interesting Cappadocian basket, a strew-hat style Gagauz school bag and finally, the Pomak lid of the old type conical bee skep.

In the other units of the museum, various types of basket are displayed from the Eastern (Turkish) Thrace, while next to these baskets there is a huge basket to the height of a man that was used by farmers mainly for the storage of wheat and corn during the winter.

Very interesting from a folkloric and aesthetic point of view are some interesting Pomak baskets used for the transportation of agricultural products, the bee skep, as well as the wedding baskets with different uses and symbolizations. There is a distinctive basket used for warding off the “evil eye”, which is dotted with black textiles, under which talismans or Kuranic verses were placed.

There is a separate unit dedicated to the weaving art of Pontus. Among the exhibits one can distinguish an intelligent improvised mechanism for peeling the sticks of the hazel-tree as well as the baskets made by the Islamized Greek-speaking people who live in the region of Euxine Pontus.

There is another unit where decorative baskets are on exhibit as well as an ice cooler-basket from the times of the Asia Minor catastrophe, which was found in a mansion at Adrianople and was transferred to the museum.

In the center of the hall of the museum, there are on display baskets from the countries of the Peninsula of Haemus, Albania, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Romania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as well as from Russia, a country with a rich background in basketry and its techniques that influenced the basket-weaving of the Slavic people. Finally, the collection is completed with the display of various types of traditional brooms.

In the museum there is a small shop selling baskets and books and an educational programme for primary school students, which is equipped with projector screenings.

Parts of the collection have been exhibited in Thessaloniki, Evros, France and, from time to time, several articles have been published in the national and international Press.

Among the main targets of the museum is the promotion and support of the basketry art and the existing artisans, the improvement of the self-image of the Roma and the sensitization of the public opinion on their traditional occupancies as well as the social and economical problems that they are facing.

Currently, the museum is open to visitors upon minimum one-day prearrangement by calling to the following mobile number: 6977 58 58 54. If the prearrangement takes place several days prior to visiting the museum, visits can be made, unless an obstacle appears, at any time during any working day or holiday.