by Alexia Vlachou
STEMNITSA, Greece, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- In Stemnitsa, a small traditional stone village of about 200 residents on the slope of the fiery Mount Menalon, about 150 km southwest of Athens, a technical school continues the area's rich tradition in gold and silver smithery.
Breathing new life into the village, students, aged 22 to 32, come from across the country and abroad to learn the art of crafting jewelry from silver and gold.
Jose Perez Mavrogenis, 24, is one of them. He left his work in London where he was a market researcher in a big company, after finishing his studies in marketing. Mavrogenis decided to come to the small settlement in the mountainous Arcadia on an altitude of 1,000 meters and learn the traditional craft.
"I don't get paid here because I am a student. But if you choose to do something you like obviously potentially it pays more," Mavrogenis told Xinhua at the Gold and Silver Smithery School.
Stemnitsa was a famous metallurgical and silversmith center since the post-Byzantine period. Director of the school Olga Papadopoulou said: "All villages in Menalon Mountain had developed certain activities to survive, besides agriculture."
Dimitsana was also an important commercial center in the 17th century due to the gun powder factories, bringing more wealth to the territory.
"The first work of a goldsmith from Stemnitsa was found in Mountain Sinai in Egypt and it was dated in 1600," Papadopoulou noted.
During the 1970s, many craftsmen decided to migrate abroad. To continue the tradition, Lambis Katsoulis, an accomplished silversmith awarded for his work by the Academy of Athens, together with another craftman Aristides Vlahogiannis, decided to open the Silver and Gold Smithery School of Stemnitsa in 1976.
The publically-funded school is housed in a two-storey traditional building and is equipped with three workshops, a design studio and a computer room.
Courses last two years and about 40 students attend the school every year. Many of the students' jewelry creations have been awarded at international exhibitions.
Papadopoulou said that students' job prospects depend on commercial circumstances. "During the 1980s and 1990s, students who graduated used to open their own shops, later they opened labs and workshops. Now there is a big trend to export their masterpieces made of metals, stones and natural art to other markets," she said.
