Old Lefki

Lefki is a small but inhabited village built at the foot of Mount Psalida. This abandoned village is built between two streams, above the inhabited Lefki of Kastoria. Upon arrival, one sees a village which through time has not been influenced at all by man but exclusively by the elements of nature. A few kilometres further on is Nea Lefki, which is a part of the Maniakos district of Kastoria. The ruins of the old village lie above the inhabited Lefki. It is the same village and bears the same name. The rough oral history we heard about the ruins of Lefki says that it was not a sudden or specific political-social-ethnic-religious cause that led to its desolation, but, the transfer of the village downwards over time. The more prosperous inhabitants began to build their houses lower down over time. That is where today’s Lefki is located. So over time, everyone started to consider that area to be better and slowly they completely abandoned the old location. Probably both the morphology (built next to streams) and the composition (looseness) of the soil at that point played a role in this.

Some buildings survive in relatively better condition than others, which have become one with the vegetation. Some have become one with the soil, which is due to the use of adobe (mud with straw) as the main building material. Only the two churches are the ones that have been renovated and maintained in recent years.