If the place is limited by its modern tourist “facade”, visitors will definitely see it as a shallow theatrical production. But if he demonstrates and cultivates his cultural baggage, then even the most ignorant tourist becomes delighted. Hydra, which has consistently tried to highlight the natives and foreigners inspired by it, has only won, whether it’s Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas and Leonard Cohen or Jeff Koons and Bryce Madden. More touching, of course, is that in the last two years the island has been making efforts to “reclaim” a lost child, Miltos Shakturi. A member of Hydra’s elite generation and a great-grandson of a sailor, the poet was the first to turn his back on his roots, probably dissatisfied with some of his relatives. It is said that every time he started going there with his life partner Elsa Persaki, he reached Poros and did not go further.

Last Friday, July 29, on his birthday, this historical injustice was corrected, and the great Shakturis now has his own bust, created by the sculptor Miltos Papastergiou. It was housed in a small theater in Kamini, a room that bears the name of the poet. The fight to reunite Shakturis with his place of origin was started by artist and near-naturalized Hydrian Alexis Veroukas and the Hydra Art Project, finding big supporters along the way such as the late filmmaker and poet Lefteris Xanthopoulos. In 2019 and 2020, with the support of the municipality and its charitable enterprise, they jointly organized two large actions on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Shakturi at the Municipal Market of the island with literary and visual content.

Now the relationship has “deepened” as the bust was unveiled by Mayor Giorgos Koukudakis, followed by Panagiotis Rappa’s short animated film “I Lost My Path”, filmed in 2021, which won awards and distinctions at many international festivals. This is a film project also inspired by Shakturi. Lead singer Floros Floridis, Michael Marmarinos and Claudia Delmer participated in the making of the film. The culmination was the subsequent concert in the theater, where the music literally gave a second life to Shakturi’s poetry. Thanks to the composer Giorgos Nikitopoulos, ten of his poems were set to music, which make up a cycle of songs called “Gifts”. Performers Iro Saia, Angelica Tumpanaki and Paulina Katsi, accompanied by seven musicians under the baton of Neoklis Neofitidis and the composer himself, thrilled the audience.