Folk Art Museum of Kalimasia

In the village of Kalimasia is a place full of history, where the past can be relived, with trinkets and gadgets from a time long past since. This place is in a spacious cellar … under the highschool.

It was in 1995 when a group of people commenced to gather folklore material, which should be displayed in the basement of the local junior highschool of Kalimasia. The reason for this was quite simple: Only there was enough free space (around 550m²) to portrait all the items which in time would find their ways into the museum. With its collection of curiosities such as a cotton gin, wash-basins, cradles, sextants, scales, weapons, carts and more the museum would already be quite impressive, but it was the desire of the corporation “Friends of Folklore Museum of Kalimasia” to give the visitor the chance to immerse deeper into the past.

“Initially with the aid of the worthly fellow villagers, we erected the oil-press and ouzo distillery”, writes Giannis Kolliaros in the official brochure of the museum. Yet having exact replicas of these two tools was no enough for the highly motivated founding fathers. The press and distillery were followed by reconstructions of traditional interior stone rooms for various professions such as the blacksmith, barber, tailor, shoemaker and butcher, one traditional Greek house, a coffee-grocer, as well as places for matress, caddle and basket makers.

With this impressive range one might think that the collection is at its end, but there is still more, like e.g. the replica of a hut, a well and even a threshing floor. The items and cloths that are on display in the museum range over about 150 years of Greek and Ottoman history and were all donated by the inhabitants of the villages and the city of Chios.

Whenever you are in or around the village of Kalimasia, keep an eye out for the Folk Art Museum of Kalimasia under the junior highschool – you will not be disappointed!