Krafsidonas Bridge

There were three main bridges over Krafsidonas River. Krafsidonas Bridge, which was part of the main road linking Nea Ionia with Volos, Anapafseos Bridge, which led to the city’s cemetery, and Papageorgiou Bridge, named after the local textile factory.  

Due to the settlement of the refugees in the area and the ensuing establishment of Nea Ionia, the construction of a larger, concrete bridge became imperative. The Refugee Settlement Committee and the Municipality of Pagases covered the construction costs, emphasizing the ‘moral obligation’ they felt towards the refugees. The bridge was completed in 1926 and became the main passage into the city of Volos for the residents of Nea Ionia. 

The journalist Athos Trigonis stressed the importance of this passage in 1933:

‘I recommend standing one morning on the settlement’s main bridge on the side which faces Volos. You will see an impressive sight: Men and women, but mainly young women, rushing over the bridge in groups of three or four, carrying their lunch in a small package, giggling, laughing, chatting. After they cross the bridge, they scatter through Volos in all directions. And as they walk over the bridge in endless droves, they look like an entire army, an army of honest work and productive labour, pouring into Volos’ various arteries like new blood that enters the city’s waking body to invigorate it and speed up the slow pace of its everyday life. But you should also go and stand at the same spot on the bridge when the sun is going down. You will see the same groups of workers reaching the bridge from all over Volos, as if drawn by an invisible magnet […]’.     

For the residents of Nea Ionia and Volos, Krafsidonas bridge continued to be the natural and symbolic boundary between their respective worlds throughout the entire 20th century. Even today, the bridge constitutes a special point of reference for the people of Nea Ionia, a ‘passage’ associated with contrasting symbolic dualities in their collective memory, such as natives/refugees, city/town, entrance/exit, bourgeois/working class, rich/poor, left-wing/right-wing, Niki Volou FC/Olympiakos Volou FC.  

The image of tens of young girls and women crossing the bridge to return to the settlement after clocking off from the city’s bigger and smaller industrial units is also described by Evangelos Moustanis:

‘Here in the textile factories, you could see the women getting on the bridge after they had clocked off at three, four, or five… an entire army of girls and women crossing the bridge. The butchers would tout their meats, the greengrocers their produce, all store owners would cry their wares. Fardy was abuzz from the square to the main road. Scores of women would cross the bridge after clocking off at the factory.’