Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Subjects about the place for destination: "STRATONIKI Village HALKIDIKI".
The Kassandra mines are found in the NE area of Chalkidiki, covering
an area of a total of 200 Km2 between Olympiada, Stanos, Megali Panagia and Ierissos.
The Kassandra mines include the layers of basic and precious metals in Olympiada,
Madem Lakkos, Mavres Petres, the layers of manganese and gold in Piavitsas and
Barbara and the layers of copper and gold in Skouria and Megali Panagia. Recently
the mines were transfered by the TVX Hellas Company to KINROSS Gold Corporation
and now they are in complete inactivity after the closure of the Madem Lakkos
mines and the metal installations in Stratoni.
The mines of gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper and manganese in Northern
Halkidiki (Stratoni and Olympiada) constituted the major financier for the Macedonian
kingdom and the expeditions of Alexander the Great. In the region there are more
than 300 wells and roughly 200.000 m3 of ancient metallurgic waste and substances.
Based on historical sources and the results of direct and indirect analyses, it
has been determined that activity began in the beginnings of classic ancient times.
In 1705 after the Sultan's firman, the mine and the right of exploiting
silver was granted to the residents of the region. At the same time in the region,
a government owned coinery began functioning. With the excavation and the fusion
of mainly the magganese minerals, the region was able to ensure gold and silver
in the Big Gate. Belon has given us exceptionally interesting information, concerning
the use of German technical terminology within the region.
The name Kassandra Mines is first presented in 1893, the year in which
the exploitation of region was granted to a French-Turkish Company which had their
headquarters in Paris. The name is obviously owed to the fact that at that time
the whole Prefecture of Halkidiki was called Kassandra. In the then 600 roughly
furnaces, the multinational community of 6.000 workers worked at a primative version
of five days work per week as the Jewish workers had their holiday on Saturdays
while the Christians on Sundays.
The 19th century meant that the Mademohoria, would pass from self-governing
to dependent work, under the power of a Corporate Administration for the exploitation
of mines. In the furnaces the company had processed until 1900, 72.000 tons of
mineral. The enterprise exploited the secondary minerals of manganese, the ferrous
layers of Mavres Petres, Piavitsas, Basdekou and Olympiada. In 1901 began the
surface exploitation of iron pyrite in the Madem Lakko mines which was continued
until 1974, but with an underground mainly method of exploitation.
In the 1920's the mines of Stratoni enter their second to last modern
period of exploitation. The French- Turkish Company succeeds the Anonymous Greek
Company of Chemical Products and Fertilizers. The company had foreseen at that
time, the necessity of wide use of fertilizers for the growth of agriculture in
the country, and thus was led to the purchase of mines in order to guarantee sulphur
which was the raw material for their Manufactures. It bought the mines of Stratoni,
Cyprus, Ermionis, Orowpos and Koronis, and founded a fertilizer factory in Drapetsona.
By this period, the accommodation quarters for workers and the essential
spaces of common use were a necessity in the wider region of the mines, so they
were installed in the higher points with a view towards the gulf of Ierissos and
were bequeathed by the AEEHP and Fertilizers Company from the French- Turkish
Company. Their arrangement is related immediately with the fact that the major
mining activity at that season was limited to the adjacent, closed however today,
gallery 323. Current Stratoni constituted then substantially as the area for the
loading of mineral, which was transported with a Decauville at a distance of 6
kilometres. In 1932 this was replaced by an air transport system.
As the mining activity increased, new installations, exclusively of
functional character, were created up to the level of today's main gallery 262.
These were the unit for the distribution of electric power, the system used for
pressurized air,mechanic areas, the offices and the outposts. The steam powered
unit for the production of electric power is located on the beach of Stratoni.
The development of a settlement in Stratoni began with the Asia Minor catastrophy,
when refugees from the mining village of Balia-Madem near Ellispontos are installed
in the temperary huts. Oral testimonies certify that the residents of Balias came
for work in the mines of Stratoni before the Asia Minor destruction. After the
powerful earthquake in 1932 that destroyed a lot of settlements in the wider region,in
Stratoni the typical huts-homes were built - under the guidance of the Ministry
of Reconstruction. Some of them are saved up to today. After the 2nd World War,
the majority of shares in the AEEHP and Fertilizers Company is taken by Bodosaki
Athanasiadi, who's activity stimulated particularly the mining sector and more
specifically Stratoni.
In the 1970's, the AEEHP and Fertilizers manufactured on the beach
of Stratoni, an enrichment factory and began the production of mixed sulphur minerals.
At the same time it manufactured groups of two-storied houses (110 in number)
for the workers as well as independent detached houses, free for the scientific
personnel. In February 1967, the new loading area was constructed and completed
within only 3 months. In the mid 70's at the entrance to the village,the Organisation
of Working Residence manufactured the known clusters of working residences. Already
by 1960 the company had granted Jouliano Hunter (an englishman) the right of exploitating
layers of manganese in Piavitsa. The mining activity of manganese degenerated
progressively and finally ceased by the middle of the 80's. Remnants of Hunte's
mine in Piavitsa, are found in between Stagira and Neohori.
The layer of lead, zinc, gold and silver in Olympiada was located
near the end of the 60's by the AEEHP and Fertilizers Company, and the production
in the mine began in 1972 and was continued up to 1995. In 1976 the new factory
of enrichment was manufactured in Olympiada, therefore the products through the
mining activity came ready to the loading area of Stratoni. Today the Kassandra
mines together with the total of mining installations and mining rights have been
transfered by the Canadian company TVX Hellas, to the KINROSS Gold Corporation.
This text is cited March 2004 from the Municipality of Stagira-Akanthos URL below
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