Wednesday morning outside the gates of the estate Tattoo bitter cold. Small groups of journalists wait their turn to visit the cemetery, accompanied by a patrol car. Right in front of the gate, two log trucks are preparing to leave for their destination, Grevena.

There is very little movement inside the estate. In the palace, now standing out from afar as its natural covering has been lost, the sound of compressors indicates that work has begun. There are several vehicles parked in the central clearing, mostly employees of the Ministry of Culture, who are working on containers that store items that were in buildings. Now this area is fenced. The rest of the clearing is littered with stacked logs. A tractor and a small crane are waiting for them to load them. Another repair shop is located in another clearing in front of the palace. Obviously, at this pace, it will take many months, if not years, until the estate is cleared of burnt trees. On the other hand, the natural regeneration is really impressive: dozens of small seedlings sprouted next to each felled trunk.

Reforestation within the estate was not carried out. According to the Ministry of the Environment, given the “reaction” of nature, it was decided not to intervene, other than to promote natural recovery. The same criterion does not apply to the entire burned area: in front of the Tatoi club, on the way to the estate, it is allowed to cut down a 2-kilometer section of burned logs and plant plantings.

The only such intervention in the estate was made a few days ago in front of the tomb of the former king, where 26 cypresses and several shrubs were planted, apparently for landscaping. The road leading to the cemetery is paved with rammed earth and gravel and appears to have existed earlier, paved with cement. However, at the top of the hill, the road was widened, reaching 10 meters, and a large plateau was opened and paved between the temples, which apparently served the needs of the funeral.

Was there permission to carry out these activities in forested areas? “For the last 12 days – because we are now being accused of remembering – we have been clearing the remains of logging on the hill. For the needs of the ceremony, only the most necessary work was done, which was supervised by the forest ranger Parnitas and the inspector of the Ministry of Forest Policy,” said Deputy Environment Minister Giorgos Amiras. “The work was carried out by personnel provided by the forestry department and the municipalities of Acharna and Dionysus, who also sent machines at our request.”

The truth is that the image of Tatoi Manor that suddenly appeared in the news in the previous days remains disappointing. The destruction that occurred in the summer of 2021 was so great that it will take many years to restore the once beloved “escape” area of ​​the Athenians. However, it appears that both the management of the burnt forest and the Tatoi restoration projects are progressing at a very slow pace. Over the past few days, the word “abandonment” has been heard many times. “There are very few studies behind etudes and projects. Two years after the fire, they are still chopping charred logs. And in one night they razed Paleokastro hill to the ground, destroying all natural regeneration. Otherwise, we cry for the lost forest,” says Vassilis Kutsavlis, president of the Friends of Tatoi association. “The whole thing is dragging on too long. Let’s face it, the damage was done, the estate was completely destroyed. For a decade it will be a place of skulls, it cannot be saved by several projects of the Ministry of Culture and the Recovery Fund.”

According to YPPO, in 2025 the museum part of Tatoya will be ready and the core of the estate will be open to visitors.

The Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for the project, believes that the fire may temporarily affect the disposal plan, but does not affect everything else. “Nature is reborn. With the help of the Ministry of the Environment, which is engaged in reforestation and restoration of the natural landscape, Tatoi will take some time, but everything will return,” says Minister Lina Mendoni. “When we presented the estate sustainability study in 2021, we talked about a plan with a horizon of at least ten years. Obviously, due to the fire, there may be a delay in the full operation of the estate. However, in 2025, the projects that the Ministry of Culture has undertaken and are currently implementing will be ready. The core of the estate and museums will be open to visitors.”

As the Minister of Culture explains, the restoration work of the palace is already underway (it is assumed that the construction part will be completed in early 2025), and work on the kitchen building will be completed in April. In February, the visitor information center (in the gamekeeper’s building) will be completed. Until the end of 2023, work will be completed on nine more buildings (the communication house, the chief gardener’s house, the Sturm’s house, the caretaker’s house, the oil mill, etc.). During the year, work will begin on the old barn (which will be converted into an exhibition space, wagon museum) with a goal of completion by the end of 2023 and on the new barn (which will house an automobile exhibition and a section dedicated to agricultural production), which is scheduled for completion in July 2025 of the year.

At the same time, research is underway on the networks and infrastructure of the estate, research on other buildings (such as a stable, a tomb building, a dairy farm). Work is also underway to document and maintain the over 100,000 mobile objects found in the estate’s buildings, with priority being given to those to be displayed in museums. Finally, the study of the Special Town-Planning Plan of the estate is underway, which is necessary, since land use must be changed. To the question “K” why the work on supporting and protecting the burnt buildings has not been carried out until their restoration begins, Ms. Mendoni replies that, according to the services, nothing threatens them.

We are talking about the projects of the Ministry of Culture. Regarding the projects of the Ministry of Environment, Mr. Amiras also declares his satisfaction. “The first thing that has been done on the wider area of ​​Tatoi and Waribompi is the anti-corrosion work that has been done by the restoration contractors and is almost complete. Within 10 months, we cleared 26,421 acres, removing about 260,000 burnt logs from a vast area of ​​Tatoi and Waribompi. There are currently five leshozes and one private person operating in the area (paid for by the restoration contractor), and we are waiting for five more leshozes on the estate to expand logging. We estimate that we have completed the removal of burnt material from one-third of the estate.”

Couldn’t this be done faster? “You can’t enter the burned forest the next day, first of all, anti-corrosion work should be carried out. I think we are moving at a satisfactory pace,” says Mr. Amiras. “Indeed, in the coming months, the forestry department will begin to thin out new seedlings so that natural regeneration of the forest can take place properly.”

It has been 20 years since 2003, when the state paid the ex-king compensation (determined by the European Court of Human Rights), closing the issue of property. Why did the use of the estate for the benefit of the townspeople take so long? In 2011, Manolis Votsis, the architect of the KOM37 office, undertook (together with Antonis Krasas and the late Stavros Ganotis) on behalf of the Athens Organization to prepare the master plan for the Tatoi Estate. This was the first attempt at a complex design of the estate. “In this country where we live, we know that it is impossible to act in a coordinated and organized manner. Tatoi Manor is not an easy task. It was a place highly charged with political events, with the result that, even today, many treat it with either prejudice or embellishment. However, the reality before the fire was the continuous presence of the inhabitants of the basin, resulting from the living of a giant anarchist metropolis, without any conditions to ensure the quality of life.

According to him, the project (which included the transformation of Tatoi into a metropolitan park) was presented in 2012, but was never accepted. “We were ‘crucified’ for offering the ‘country of taverns’,” says Mr. Votsis. For a while, the transfer of the estate to TAIPED was discussed, and then the matter came to a standstill. “Today we have returned to the previous situation. The Ministry of Internal Affairs should deal only with the central core, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs – with everything else. At the same time, institutions replacing the state assumed an important role in planning (since the preparation of the studies was carried out by the Laskaridis Foundation). Let’s hope that the case will be taken somewhere, at least through destruction.

The palace is being restored. It is expected that its transformation into a museum space will be completed in the first quarter of 2025, so that it will be put into operation in the same year.

Work on the accompanying (palace) kitchen building is expected to be completed by April this year.

Restoration work will begin in the coming months with a goal of completion by the end of 2023. It will be turned into an exhibition space.

The building will house an automobile exhibition and a section dedicated to agricultural production. Its refurbishment will be completed by the end of 2025.

Its transformation into the Tatoi Manor Information Center is expected to be completed within the next month.

Nine buildings are currently under restoration and should be completed by the end of 2023. The rest are being researched.