Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures

Under the Forest with Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou

In this episode Jason König interviews Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou [https://www.bsc.es/moudopoulos-athanasiou-faidon] about his work as a landscape archaeologist in the mountainous region of Zagori in northwest Greece. Faidon is Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computational Archaeology Research Group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, working on a project entitled ‘Under the Forest’. His 2022 book, The Early Modern Zagori of Northwest Greece [https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-early-modern-zagori-of-northwest-greece] offers a very wide-ranging reassessment of the landscape archaeology of the region in the Ottoman period and beyond, from the 15th-20th century.   Faidon talks first about his family connections with Zagori and his experience of visiting there in summer holidays as a child. We discuss Faidon’s book on early modern Zagori, work on uncovering local archives in the villages of Zagori, and also his collaborations with the Boulouki Collective [https://boulouki.org/] on a series of architecture projects in the region. We then we turn to Faidon’s current project, ‘Under the Forest’, which aims to shed new light on the archaeological heritage that is increasingly concealed by afforestation. Faidon describes the ‘remote sensing’ archaeological techniques that allow him to bring that heritage to life, and talks about the tradition of giving special protection to ‘sacred forests’ in the Ottoman period. We talk about Faidon’s work on the region’s successful UNESCO world heritage bid, before turning finally to some of the challenges facing local communities in the mountains of northern Greece, including wildfires and depopulation. Faidon offers some closing reflection on ways in which the creation of cultural trails through the landscape can help with tourist development.

Lifelines with Julian Hoffman

In this episode Jason König interviews Julian Hoffman [https://julian-hoffman.com/] about living in the mountainous region of Prespa in northern Greece, and about his latest project on the Aoos river.  Julian is the prize-winning author of The Small Heart of Things (2012), Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save our Wild Places(2019), and most recently Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece (2025), which tells the story of his move to Prespa, where he has lived for the last two decades. We start by talking about how Julian’s fascination with mountains first developed on a trip to the foothills of the Himalayas in India. Julian then gives us a sketch of the Prespa region, with its ancient lakes ringed by mountains, stretching across the borders between Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. He describes the hospitality he and his wife received when they moved there from London, the changing relationships between the local population and the mountain landscapes they live close to, and the animals and especially the birds that are such a powerful presence in the experiences he describes in Lifelines.  In the second half we discuss the Aoos/Vjosa river, the last surviving large, free-flowing river in Europe, which runs through northern Greece and Albania. We talk about the amazing variety and environmental richness of the waterways across the whole Aoos river basin, and Julian describes a visit to the Sarantaporos (a tributary of the Aoos) in January 2026 to see the river in flood. Finally we discuss the challenges facing the region – including not just depopulation and the effects of climate change, but also the policy of siting wind turbines in mountain landscapes that are ‘largely pristine, biologically alive, and hugely ecologically important’. We also talk about hope for the future, especially Prespa’s character as a place that can transcend borders and national differences.

Boundary stones of Mt Taygetos with Socrates Koursoumis

In this episode Jason König interviews Socrates Koursoumis [https://ypppo.academia.edu/SocratesKoursoumis] about his archaeological work in the mountains of Greece, especially on Mount Taygetos. Socrates is an archaeologist of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. He has been a staff member of the Central Department of the Ministry, as well as the Ephorates of Lesbos, Attica, Elia, Messenia and the Corinthia. He has undertaken several excavations in Attica, the Peloponnese, the Aegean islands, and Crete, and carried out three surveys at Lavreotiki, on Mount Taygetos (Messenia) and on Mt Lykaion (Arcadia). We start by talking about Socrates’ early experience of the mountain regions of Lesbos in his childhood, before moving on to discuss the first steps in his archaeological work in the mountains. Socrates talks about his work on Mount Lykaion and the mountains of Arkadia, and about the importance of walking if we want to understand the history of these places. We then to turn to his excavations on the site of the ancient silver mines at Laurion in Attica. In the second half we take a look at Mount Taygetos, particularly Socrates' work on the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis in the northern Taygetos region on the borders with Messenia, his decades-long research project on the ancient boundary stones on the Taygetos summit ridge, and finally a recent project on the continuities between ancient and modern wine production in the region. Socrates ends with some final reflections on the (sometimes dangerous!) challenges of mountain archaeology, and its value for local communities. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/] and subscribe for regular updates, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/] and subscribe for regular updates, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

History of the Pindus with Molly Greene

In this episode Jason König interviews Molly Greene [https://history.princeton.edu/people/molly-greene] about her research on the history of the Pindus mountains in Ottoman Greece, from 1400-1821. Molly is Professor of History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. Her research has focused on many different aspects of the history of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire, and the Greek world. Her interests include the social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire, the experience of Greeks under Ottoman rule and the early modern Mediterranean. Her publications include her award-winning 2010 book, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean 1450-1700. Molly starts by talking about how she first came to be interested in the mountain regions of Greece as a possible research topic, first of all during the four years she spent living in Greece after her undergraduate degree, and then again in the early 2010s, on a wintry detour through the mountains during a drive from Athens to Thessaloniki. She discusses some of the models she has found helpful for thinking about mountains, in the work of historians like Fernand Braudel and James Scott, before going on to outline some of the challenges of telling the story of a region that has traditionally been viewed as being ‘without history’. We talk about the importance of monasteries and monastic history for understanding the region’s connectedness with the rest of Greece, but also some of the difficulties of accessing sources. Molly then zooms in on a case study of the monastery and bridge at Tatarna before offering some final reflections on why it matters to make mountain history more visible. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/] and subscribe for regular updates, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/] and subscribe for regular updates, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

Paths of Greece with Fivos Tsaravopoulos

In this episode Jason König interviews Fivos Tsaravopoulos, founder and manager of Paths of Greece [https://pathsofgreece.gr]. This is the first episode in our new Mountains of Greece series within the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures podcast project. Paths of Greece was founded in 2010 as a social co-operative enterprise, and has played a leading role over the last fifteen years in developing new hiking routes across Greece. We talk first about Fivos' childhood spent on archaeological sites around Greece, and then his first Paths of Greece projects on Kythera [https://pathsofgreece.gr/project/kythera-trails/] and elsewhere. Fivos talks about some of the bewilderment that greeted his early efforts from local people, but also the growing interest in hiking in Greece over the last decade or so, and the special character of the mountains of Greece as 'hospitable' that marks them out from some of the other big mountaineering destinations in Europe. We talk about some possible ways of quantifying the economic and health impacts of the 2000 km of trails that Paths of Greece have established over the last few years. Fivos then gives some examples of recent work, for example the Paths of Peace [https://pathsofgreece.gr/project/paths-peace/] project at Florina, and talks about some of the similarities and differences between mountain and island trail projects. Finally we discuss the challenges of depopulation that a lot of Greek mountain communities are facing, and some of the ways in which tourism might be able to help. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk], or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.