Tagged
Hydra
New Orleans Stories: A Chat with Vicky Dimitry, Descendant of the First Hydriot in America
It is always a pleasure when, while combing through archives and historical documents, you can trace the living descendants to the subjects you are studying. So it was this spring, in New Orleans, as I…
Hydra and her Wooden Walls
The use of wood in navigation is older than civilization itself, as it is present in nature. A ride hitched on a fallen log begat the dugout canoe, and the rest is history. The Aegean…
Hydra’s Nautical Academy: The Oldest in the World
For millennia Aegean islanders have plied the seas, seeking fortune on the water usually denied to them on land. At no time was this truer than during the era when Greeks groaned under foreign rule,…
How Hydra Got its Name, and other Riddles of a Glorious Island
It is hard not to fall in love with Hydra. We Hydriots are, of course, biased, yet the island’s graphic beauty, sharp light, and proud history, seasoned with the imprimatur of artists and celebrities, make…
The Hydriot And The Argentine Navy
Quite close to the Hydra Museum and its Merchant Marine Academy, there are a series of commemorative plaques and statues. Waiting for the fast hydrofoil that would take me once again away from Hydra, after…
A Chat with the Director of the Historical Archives-Museum of Hydra
Hydra itself is a living museum. Few are the places where time seems to have stopped, and the visitor can walk the streets of a place—in this case, a breathtakingly beautiful one—and have essentially the…
Hydra 200 Years ago… in 1820
As this article goes to (digital) press, time travel is still not a possibility, and to recreate the past, even as a historian depending on documents, is still, in part, an act of fiction. The…
Hydra, the “Rock of Liberty”: Leading in 2021, as in 1821
For those who are students of the Greek War of Independence, few places figure as prominently as the island of Hydra. This is not just the boosterism of a proud Hydriot (which I am), but…
Hydra: Summers On My Father’s Isle
Permit me this nostalgic moment, recalling my late father, John Alexander Billinis, and his island, our beloved Hydra. I wrote this nearly ten years ago after my father passed away. When necessary, I will edit…
