The village of Dionysos close to Sitia in Crete has slowly emptied of its residents and is now empty and abandoned but for a handful of families and squatters who remain there
An eerie abandoned village where something feels “not quite right” sits empty and crumbling, but for a handful of remaining residents.
The abandoned Dionysos village sits along the coast from Sitia in Crete. As you approach the flock of buildings on the hillside you will notice that it “looks different somehow. Something looks wrong, somehow lost,” an explorer for We Travel wrote recently.
Until the mid 2010s, the village was a thriving holiday destination. It has a prime location on the coastline scorched by summer sun. To the untrained eye, there is nothing amiss about the cluster of holiday homes and hotels that sit at the foot of the parched, dusty hillside.
Indeed, what is and what went wrong is something of a mystery. At some point in the last decade people stopped coming to Dionysos.
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Some claim that the resort village was built on the wrong part of Crete, away from any nightlife and too far from the airport. When certain sea currents begin to flow, rubbish is washed onto the beach – not something sunseekers want to deal with.
“It was and remains the worst beach in the Mediterranean,” a local source told Greek outlet B2 Green. According to the publication, the owner’s unstable finances eventually led to the collapse of the settlement, with only three-quarters of the 470 properties built there ever sold.
For a period, the 200 or so families who lived there turned Dionysos into a relatively buzzy resort town which welcomed in guests during the summer months. Slowly however, the communal areas around the properties began to crumble when responsibility to manage them was moved from the developer to the villagers. As more people left, things became more unkempt.
Today plants are growing through cracks in the rocks and the streets are untidy. A large central swimming pool is empty of water but increasingly full of dust. Now, just 10 families call Dionysos their fulltime home.
Recently, photographer Marco Petrini visited the “nearly deserted” village where some apparent squatters are now occupying some buildings.
“Upon my arrival, I began to wander around, and the sound of distant voices and some old, rusty cars parked here and there, indicated the presence of people, but I wasn’t sure about my safety, since I was alone and I had my gear with me (camera, lenses, drone, etc.)” Marco explained.
“Believe it or not, it turned out some of these houses (although very few) were still inhabited, and I didn’t want to intrude too heavily. Therefore, although I would have loved to set up my tripod and capture multiple exposures and different compositions, I opted for handheld photography.
“At one point, I noticed someone approaching me, but I couldn’t decipher her intentions… She began to talk to me in Greek, and while I couldn’t understand what she was saying, from the tone of her voice it was clear that I was not welcome there, prompting my decision to leave.”
Journalist Lexi Taciak described the village as having an “uncanny valley” feel to it. “From far away the village looks pretty normal, but the closer you look the more clues you see that it is deserted and that something is not quite right. The juxtaposition between the cheerful colors, playful lines, dynamic light, and the conditions of the village is really interesting to see,” she added.
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