Category: Misc

The 3rd Panhellenic Contest of Standardized Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The Cultural Foundation « The Routes of the Olive Tree », in cooperation with the General  Secretariat for the Consumer of the Ministry of Development, the Greek Society of Olive Products Tasters (EL.E.G.E.P.) and the Network of Olive Oil Producing Cities of Greece (D.E.P.E), is organising the 3rd Panhellenic Contest of Standardized Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  

The 3rd Panhellenic Contest of Standardized Extra Virgin Olive Oil will take place during the last week of March 2009  in the sampling laboratories of the Ministry of Development, having as a goal to presenta and promote the best standardized Extra Virgin Olive Oils.

The contesting olive oils will be judged for their physical and chemical caracteristics by the Sampling Team of the Ministry of Development (the only officially recognised in Greece) according to the standards of the International Olive Oil Council, and  for their  packaging by food marketing experts.

The “Little Friends of The Routes of the Olive Tree” was an original idea thought-up and put in place a year ago by the Cultural Foundation “Routes of the Olive Tree”.

The objectives of this project are:

1. to allow young people in Greece and other countries linked to the olive tree to get to know one another and encourage discussions

2. to develop knowledge of traditions linked to the olive tree (history, culture, gastronomy, etc.) and their diffusion in both olive-growing and non olive-growing countries by encouraging discussions amongst young people

3. to introduce the young public to the culture, values and symbolism of the olive tree and make them aware of their diffusion

4. to make people aware of the alimentary importance of products made with olivesthrough the discovery of the Mediterranean land and gastronomy.

The above objectives will be reached in the following ways:

Through a web-site/ BLOG, which will be a means of communication and dialogue between young Greeks and young people from other countries. The site will work like a discussion forum and its objective will be to diffuse all information relating to the olive tree and encourage interactivity between young people. It will also be a place to gather propositions and ideas thought up for and by young people on a number of different themes: culture/ gastronomy/ landscape and countries of the olive tree/ olive products etc.

Through the organisation of events for young people in the network of partner countries. These will be events based on propositions and initiatives by young people. The events will involve artistic and culinary competitions and games, exhibitions of paintings and photographs, cultural routes in olive-growing regions, cookery classes using olive oil, tasting of olive-related products in places frequented by young people, and so on.

Children and young people on the Routes of the Olive Tree

As part of the creation of the “Club of Friends of the Olive Tree”, an activity organised in cooperation with the Environmental Education Centre in Kalamata (Messenia, Greece), has become part of the “Routes of the Olive Tree 2008-2009” programme.

The activity will take place in the form of a olive-tree themed painting workshop for children and young people (creation ‘on canvas’ of an olive tree using handprints)and has already been set up in a number of schools in Messenia. The aim is to introduce young people to the culture of the olive tree, and the workshop has also been carried out as part of the 2008 cultural route of the Foundation with much success in countries through which “Routes of the Olive Tree” passes (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Romania).

As part of the formula “travel with us on the Routes of the Olive Tree”, hundreds of children and young people have created their own olive tree using the palm of their hand, have received detailed information on the olive tree and the Routes of the Olive Tree and as a result have sent their own message of peace!

The NGO Mawassen Khair (Charity Harvest) has been working actively for the protection of the environment of Lebanon for years.
Goal 2009 : reforestation of 40 000 olive groves in the South of Lebanon !

Ibrahim El Ali, founder of the NGO Mawassem Khair and long-time defender of the environment, is among those who wish to « leave to our children a planet where living is good for them ». The programmes he has been realising, especially in the South of Lebanon where he lives, are guided by the dream of sustainable development and the urgent need to preserve our ecosystem.

Among the NGO’s goals for 2009, one of the flagships-projects is to reforestate more than 40.000 olive trees in the south Lebanon, allowing the population to make up for the income they had lost because of the war and the forest fires that damaged the small farms. These olive trees will be planted in 50 villages, at the rate of 500 to 1000 olive trees per village, in cooperation with Finul, the local autorities, the religious leaders, schools and NGOs of the area. 100.000 people will be involved directly or indirectly in this project, among which the small production units of olive oil or soap.

This exemplary project is a catalyst of sustainable development in the area, impoverished by the war in 2006 and the shortage of local industrial installations.

More information in : http://fondation-elali.blogspot.com/ (website in french)

 Sensitising meeting; Ibrahim El Ali’s nursery

 

A visit to the soap museum in Saida, Lebanon, broadens our horizons as to soap history in the region that stretches out from Alepo to Nablus, its development, its manufacture techniques and its usage throughout the centuries.

The soap museum of Saida, Lebanon, is housed inside the old soap factory of Audi family, a very famous lebanese family who has created the museum.

The principal elements of the soap factory are constantly in Situ such as the huge basin and the Lixiviation basins. Other installations have been re-emerged from the past and a chronological path was redrawn.

Thus, visitors explore the different steps of the traditional olive oil soap production; raw materials, fuel and adopted practices for the preparation of the paste, liquefaction, drying, cutting into bars and final drying prior to packaging and marketing. These installations are illustrated on panels that include drawings and .

 

The museum is open daily except on Friday from 9:00 to 18:00.

 

More informations on  www.fondationaudi.org

 

 

 

 

Two words on Saïda

Saïda is one of the most important city of South Lebanon. Well-known as Sidon, as un port Phoenician, this city was able to preserve its idiosyncratic urban fabric and its social, handcraft and cultural traditions.
It Medina, its archeological sites, fortresses, mosques, madrassas and khans award it an undeniable historical value.

The new book of Patrick LANGER, a famous French historian, writer and expert in matters concerning the olive tree and the Mediterranean as well as member of the scientific committee of the Cultural Foundation “The Olive Tree Routes”, has just been published and is now available in French bookstores!

L’OLIVIER by  Patrick LANGER  

Publisher: Edisud, Αιx-en-Provence, France
127 pages, (21 Χ 18 cm.), coloured illustrations

This book is an open invitation to everyone to discover the cultural heritage of the olive tree and everything that it implies! Find out how…

“The olive tree dominates landscapes around the Mediterranean Sea.  Approximately 900 million of olive trees are registered nowadays, without counting the hundreds of thousands olive trees that decorate public and private spaces or those that grow in wild deserted grounds. A historian and a photographer, both inhabitants of Provence, are passionate with this tree that reminds of a traveler in time and space; multiform because of its many varieties and the different agricultural methods used for its cultivation; a generous tree that gives back to people love and care, offering them its valuable products.In the near future, due to the planet’s overheating, the olive tree will expand in other regions, further and further from the Mediterranean coasts, a mobile border engraving a new growing Mediterranean region”

It goes without saying that in this interesting book are mentioned the “Routes of the Olive Tree”, presented by the author as an excellent suggestion of intercultural dialogue that favours local economies in the olive oil producing regions of the Mediterranean (see p. 60-61).

Three photographs of an artist-painter participated in the 10th edition of the Routes of the Olive Tree. A fruitful collaboration, rich in images and colours!

On the occasion of the 2008 itinerary, the “caravan” of the Routes of the Olive Tree had the pleasure to count among its collaborators three professional photographers, Andrea Bonetti, Giorgos Prinos and Tassos Vamvakas and an artist-painter, Heike Kummer.  

Throughout the whole journey, they contributed with their unique personal look to this extraordinary adventure that joined the Routes of the Olive Tree and those of Central Asia as far as Moscow, for nearly two months.

They managed to transcribe, each in their own way, the landscapes we crossed, the cultural diversity of each country, the path we traced and the outstanding journey of the “backpackers of the olive tree”; as well as the enchanting moments and situations, the exchanges and the original meetings… So many anecdotes making each journey an exceptional road experience and a special way to discover a country!  

From the striking portraits of Giorgos Prinos on the colourful and imaginative palette of Heike Kummer,the captivating landscapes of Andrea Bonetti until the “travelling” and sensitive snapshots of Tassos Vamvakas, these artists’ attentive work is the real Travel journal of the Routes of the Olive Tree!

In the following months, the Cultural Foundation “The Routes of the Olive Tree” is planning to promote this artistic work to the general public, with several exhibitions and the issue of an album dedicated to the 10th itinerary.

 

Artists’ biographies

Heike Kummer

Born in Waiblingen, Germany in 1970.Studied as a Goldsmith in Pforzheim and Hamburg, Germany.In 1998 she applied for an advertised job in a goldsmith workshop on Rhodes, Greece where she worked as goldsmith and in tourism until 2003.Contacts to other local and foreign artists led her to free art studies which she began on Rhodos and continued in Athens where she lived till 2006.During that time she participated in several group exhibitions on Rhodes.Since 2006 Student at the University of Western Macedonia, department of Applied and Visual Arts. More information available on the site www.heikekummer.com

Andrea Bonetti

Born in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1968, after studies in Biology in Italy, Andrea Bonetti moved in 1995 to begin a research on the birds of the Gialova Lagoon of Pylos, SW Peloponnese. His studies brought him close to wildlife photography, which slowly became his main occupation. His pictures have been published in various magazines around the world. His third book, a guide to the Greek Nature, is in bookshops since july, published by ROAD Editions, and will be published soon in a smaller guide format. More information available on the site http://www.andreabonetti.com/   

George Prinos

He was born in Athens in 1977. He studied photography at the Leica Academy and the Photography Cycle. He has worked for many magazines of the Greek Press and from 2002 until 2004 for the “Athens 2004” Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. His work has also been exhibited in collective exhibitions in Greece and abroad. He lives and works in Athens. He participated for the first time in the Cultural Itinerary “Routes of the Olive Tree” in the summer of 2002 and keeps collaborating regularly with the Foundation.

http://yorgosprinos.com/

Tassos Vamvakas

Born in Kalamata, T. Vamvakas’ first contact with the art of photography while still in the university. He was a student in the school of Agronomics where he makes his first steps in photography, steps that will lead him, ultimately, to his full and professional involvement with it. Since 2003, he retains, in collaboration with G. Kossyvas, the studio of professional photography Studio F, while from time to time exhibits his work in individual or collective exhibitions. T. Vamvakas is the official photographer of the “Routes of the Olive Tree”, while at times teaches at the seminars of the Photography Club of Kalamata. More information available on the site http://www.studiof.gr/

Copyright:

1 et 8 Andrea Bonetti
2 et 3 Georges Prinos
4 et 7 Heike Kummer
5 et 6 Thassos Vamvakas

 

 

The Routes of the Olive tree has been sharing it’s passion with hundreds of riders for already 9 years.They’ve been going together on the road to explore the Mediterranean countries and sceneries.

A beautiful friendship that has never stopped!

The motorcycling supporters and the olive tree lovers met for the first time in 1999, in Greece, to ride a 16 000 kms route, during 40 days, through Mediterranean countries and olive tree populations. They, together, have been aiming at supporting the sustainable development, in aid of the olive oil regions and have been passing a symbolic message of peace and solidarity on for the olive tree. Since then, trips have followed one another, always with the same enthusiasm and dynamism, giving birth to exchanges always greater and greater, stronger and stronger, with contributors coming from all around the Mediterranean areas.

 

The motorbike is an asset in this kind of trip, means of exploring the most isolated olive tree sceneries. The motorbike is also a good connection between local populations and travellers : it attracts curious people and make the passionate ones talk about it, children like it, and that’s where the dialogue begins. More than means of transport, the motorbike enables to have a direct and warm relationship with the people met during the trip. Then, we talk about motorbikes, olive tree… and many other things !
Year after year, the motorbike has become the Routes of the Olive tree’s essential element. A sporting and original trademark. The riders and olive tree’s messengers are adventurers who never weary of travelling through the Mediterranean routes to meet their neighbours.

This summer, they will go with the Foundation, towards new and further panoramas, all along the Silk Road and the transsiberian, having for only luggage, two wheels, an olive tree branch and the pleasure of travelling together!

At the Far-South of the Greek peninsula « welcoming, idyllic, rich and pretty » according to Euripidus, with mild winters, pleasant summers, mild automns and perfumed springs, the Messinia is year-round a fertile and warm destination!

The fires that have arosen in the Peloponnese area during the summer 2007, have devastated a good part of the Messinian forest prosperity and has affected many sectors in its economy. The thoudands of riders that will take part in the 63rd IMF rally will give that area the chance to promote its beauties and its prosperity and display that it’s still living and can still offer gorgeous scenieries, a nice heritage as well as tourist pleasures that remain unique. Just come and acknowledge it yourself !

For more informations about Messinia, you can log on www.discovermessinia.gr