by Kostis Geropoulos STYMPHALIA, Greece– When Aglaia Kiourktsoglou first arrived in Stymphalia, a village in Corinthia, Peloponnese, after working at the busy Athens city centre she was taken aback by nature. “I stopped my car’s engine and could not hear anything. I could not hear voices, I could not hear cars, I could not hear the crisis and it was amazing,” Kiourktsoglou told New Europe at the Environment Museum of Stymphalia, where she works as the local coordinator. “After 25 years I decided to come here and find another level of life. I think the conditions here are perfect. If you imagine the centre of Athens during the last five years of the economic crisis, it was very difficult to travel between home and work. I was living in Kalamaki, which is an area about 20 minutes from the center of Athens, and usually it took me about an hour because of the traffic and then we had all these problems,” Kiourktsoglou said. “Here it takes me about half an hour but every day I feel like I’m taking an excursion. And the quality of life is great. You can hear the birds; you can see the seasons change. For example, you can feel that spring has arrived today,” she said as we walked outside and could feel that spring is in the air despite the snow in the surrounding mountaintops. She pointed out at Ancient Stymphalos where Anastasios Orlandos excavated parts of the site for the Archaeological Society of Athens between 1924 and 1930 when there was also an economic crisis in Greece. Since 1982, excavations of the site on the north shore of Lake Stymphalia have been under way, directed by a Canadian team. Sophia Staikou, Chairman of the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP), told New Europe in Athens that in the beginning the Greek economic crisis affected the visitation of the country’s museums, including the museums of PIOP. “However, within the crisis people have sought quality which highlighted the comparative advantages of all the museums of PIOP as well as the Environment Museum of Stymphalia,” she said. Soon the downward trend in the number of visitors of PIOP in 2009-2010 was not only reversed but every year there is a new record in the number of visitors and that includes the Environment Museum Stypmfalia, Staikou said. From the comments to the visitor’s book, it is apparent that students and their teachers are a significant part of the visitors to the Environment Museum. Staikou said they find the museum to be friendly, innovative and interesting as it presents schematic knowledge of the environment and civilization they study in school and gives them the opportunity to connect the important findings with the natural environment of the lake that lies before them. On location at the Environment Museum of Stymphalia, Kiourktsoglou said that the economic crisis has in some ways helped the museum because of its proximity to Athens but also because it is interesting. “We have travelers that come here all around the world. Last year we even had travelers from India and South Korea. Greeks also start to love the place. We have a lot of children; we have a lot of schools that come here and they love the museum because it is a very interactive museum, they play in the museum, they can touch things, they can imagine, they can go in the boat that we have,” Kiourktsoglou said, pointing at the aquarium. The area is also mentioned in Greek Mythology, due to the Stymphalian birds, which infested the Arcadian woods near the lake. Hercules’ sixth labour was to exterminate them. “Here you can imagine all four of the 12 Labours of Hercules,” Kiourktsoglou said, also referring to killing the Nemean lion, the Lernaean Hydra, and cleaning up King Augeas’ stables in Argos. “You can go to Nemea from here. It’s less than 20 minutes and to Lerna. Of course, we can talk about the Stymphalian birds here and then you can go to Argos. It’s all very close. If you travel for one day, you can see all those places and you can imagine the Labours of Hercules,” she said. “You can try to explain the labours in a scientific way you can speak about the labours also in a philosophical because Hercules was a very famous hero and a loved one because he has all the good things that a man tries to find. He was a good man, he was a very brave man, he was clever and he was honest,” Kiourktsoglou said. Aggelos Papaggelopoulos, deputy governor of the Peloponnese Region, told New Europe that the Labours of Hercules could attract even more tourists in the area, including Nemea. He also highlighted the great interests in the ancient cities of Corinth and Sikyon. See also: How Miller Unearthed The Nemean Games Meanwhile, protecting Lake Stymphalia and the environment has also been a major priority. The aim of the over €2 million LIFE- Stymphalia project, which is 50% co-funded by the EU’s LIFE+, is the restoration of Lake Stymphalia and its long-term protection and management, through a systematic re-financing process, which will be ensured by the utilisation of the reeds’ biomass. Asked about the project, Staikou said in Athens that the idea for the LIFE+ Programme belongs to Piraeus Bank. “It was formed in the Environment Unit which sought partners to develop and implement a plan for sustainable management and protection of Lake Stymphalia and general habitat,” she said. The Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation was the ideal partner for such a project as it was already present in the area and had recorded the connection between cultural and natural heritage, she said. “Besides, a plan for sustainable management of the lake cannot ignore the cultural heritage of the area. With this collaboration we developed a new management model which was presented gathering a very positive response in an International Conference on Cultural Landscapes that we organised in Athens and Stymphalia in October 2014," Staikou said.
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