By Nicolas Bard

About 43 kilometers away from the city of Komotini, in the mountain range of Rodopi, the small village of Orgi is hidden. There are about 500 permanent residents today, most of whom are involved in tobacco cultivation and few livestock farming.

The village became widely known in previous years as the “poorest village of Greece”.

Indeed, the average annual tax – family income amounts to EUR 8,620. As living conditions there are quite difficult, there are a few who leave in larger cities and abroad, looking for a better tomorrow. They usually migrate to the Netherlands, Germany and neighboring Turkey.

Access to the village is quite difficult and seems to be cut off from culture. Very close to the border with Bulgaria, and at an altitude of 400 meters in dense hills, the winter there is long and very difficult. The few pupils of the village are forced to go daily to neighboring areas for high school, and while the state once put the transport, the financial crisis came and this facilitating stopped, making their work even more difficult. It is logical that there are many who stop at the Gymnasium and never manage to study.

During the financial crisis, a German correspondent for Handelblatt argued that in the village many children were beggars and were asking for money, to a little food.

This image is cruel and seems almost unreal in our eyes, but 2012 was a reality.

The 150 families living there today are mostly lived by the cultivation of tobacco and welfare benefits. Pensions are low enough for home and family expenses, and most have gardens, so they don’t spend a lot of money on fruit and vegetables. Still, the village has only one small clinic, where a doctor is presented once or twice a week.

This implies that in the event of an emergency, the transfer to Komotini is quite difficult, especially in winter, which often closes the road from snowfall.

But apart from medical care and finding work in the village and neighboring areas is a science fiction scenario.

The organ can be a poor village, but it has retained its identity and authenticity over the years. There, every summer, the organism is organized by the Organ Community at the Aladepe Festival, where the participating wrestlers fight with each other. This kind of festivals are particularly widespread in the mountainous Rhodope and are likely to be started in the area as early as 1400.

Such oil struggle images can also be seen in Eastern Thrace, as in Adrianople, where it is very popular there and gathering a multitude of visitors.

His camera where there is Greece traveled to this distant village, talked to the locals and gave us a picture of the current situation.