Drama, Greece
Encyclopedia
Drama the ancient Drabescus , is a town and municipality
Communities and Municipalities of Greece
For the new municipalities of Greece see the Kallikratis ProgrammeThe municipalities and communities of Greece are one of several levels of government within the organizational structure of that country. Thirteen regions called peripheries form the largest unit of government beneath the State. ...

 in northeastern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. Drama is the capital of the peripheral unit
Peripheral units of Greece
The 74 regional units are administrative units of Greece. They are subdivisions of the country's 13 regions, further subdivided into municipalities. They were introduced as part of the "Kallikratis" administrative reform on 1 January 2011 and are comparable in size and often coterminous with the...

 of Drama which is part of the East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace....

 periphery
Peripheries of Greece
The current official regional administrative divisions of Greece were instituted in 1987. Although best translated into English as "regions", the transcription peripheries is sometimes used, perhaps to distinguish them from the traditional regions which they replaced. The English word 'periphery'...

. The town (pop. 42,501 in 2001) is the economic center of the municipality (pop. 55,632), which in turn comprises 53.5 percent of the prefecture's population. The next largest communities in the municipality are Choristi (pop. 2,625), Χiropótamos (2,601), Kalós Agrós (1,216), Kallífytos (1,083), and Koudoúnia (885).

Name

Drama has excellent water resources and may well owe its name to Hydrama (Greek: "having to do with water"), a town which it is believed stood on the same site in ancient times. In the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 era, Drabescus was a trade center and military camp on the Via Egnatia
Via Egnatia
The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed the Roman provinces of Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thrace, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey.Starting at Dyrrachium on the...

. Since the Middle Ages it has been known as Δράμα in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Драма in Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

.

History

In 1912 during the First Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...

, Drama was taken from the Ottomans by Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n troops. Subsequently, in 1913 as a result of the Treaty of Bucharest, following the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...

, it was incorporated into Greece along with the rest of Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace....

.

Drama was occupied by Bulgarian troops from 1941 to 1944 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

The Drama uprising and the Drama massacre

On September 29, 1941, in response to local communist guerrilla attacks against the Bulgarians in the villages of Drama, the Bulgarian occupation forces applied harsh reprisals in Drama, Doxato
Doxato
Doxato is a town and municipality in the Drama peripheral unit, in East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Kalampaki.-Municipality:...

 and several villages like Choristi, Kyrgia, Koudounia and Prosotsani.

The deportation of Drama's Jews

On March 4, 1943 after midnight, there was an action all over Thrace, including in the city of Drama. Bulgarian soldiers led by foot and freight trains all the 4,000 Jews in Thrace, including the 589 from Drama, into Bulgarian territory and assembled them in the tobacco warehouses that were empty this time of year. From there, the Jews were taken by train to the extermination camp of Treblinka. No one of the 589 Jews from Drama came back.

Economy

In the recent past the economy of the Drama area relied heavily on the local paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 and textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

-clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

 industries
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

. However, these industries have either closed down or moved across the border to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, because of the low demands of the Bulgarian workforce, with a negative impact on the local economy and employment. The situation worsened after 2007, when Bulgaria was admitted to the EU, and local Greek businessmen moved to expand their operations there. Other sources of revenue include agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, consisting mainly of tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 plantations, small-scale mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 (particularly of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

) and forestry. Recently, there have been efforts to exploit the rich local natural environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

 and to develop ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

.

There is a modern ski resort
Ski resort
A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing and other winter sports. In Europe a ski resort is a town or village in a ski area - a mountainous area, where there are ski trails and supporting services such as hotels and other accommodation, restaurants, equipment rental and a ski lift system...

 on Mount Falakro
Falakro
Falakro Oros is a mountain in northern Greece, in the prefecture of Drama, Greece. A ski resort is available...

. Drama also hosts an annual short film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

http://www.dramafilmfestival.gr/.

Municipality

The municipality Drama was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units (constituent communities in brackets):
  • Drama (Choristi, Drama, Kallifytos, Kalos Agros, Koudounia, Livadero, Makryplagi, Mavrovatos, Mikrochori, Monastiraki, Mylopotamos, Nikotsaras, Xiropotamos)
  • Sidironero
    Sidironero
    Sidironero is a village and a former community in northern Drama peripheral unit, East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Drama, of which it is a municipal unit...

     (Sidironero, Skaloti)

Population

Year Town Municipal district Municipality
1981 37,118 - -
1991 37,604 - 47,925
2001 42,501 43,485 55,632

Corporation with other cities

Kragujevac
Kragujevac
Kragujevac is the fourth largest city in Serbia, the main city of the Šumadija region and the administrative centre of Šumadija District. It is situated on the banks of the Lepenica River...

, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

Lauf an der Pegnitz
Lauf an der Pegnitz
Lauf an der Pegnitz is a municipality near Nuremberg, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nürnberger Land, in Bavaria....

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...


Culture

Since 1978, Drama hosts a Short Film Festival. In 1987, the festival was recognized nationally. It which was included in 1996 in the National Cultural Network of Cities by the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Museums

  • Archaeological Museum

Two exceptional works of art in copperThe Archaeological Museum of Drama covers human presence in the prefecture of Drama from the mid Paleolithic Period (50,000 years before present) with traces of life from Paleolithic hunts in the caves of the source of the Angitis, up to modern times (1913).

The exhibition space consists of three main halls. In the first archaeological finds from the cave of Maara give witness to the presence of nomadic hunters in the area from the mid Palaeolithic period, while other finds show us about the life of settled farmers and animal rearers from Neolithic villages and the passage of the Copper Age in the city of Drama and the village of Sitagri. The reproduction of a Neolithic house with finds which describe the activities of Neolithic man and his daily activities is the main centre of interest for visitors of all ages.

Bust of Dionysius
Dionysius
The Graeco-Roman name Dionysius, deriving from the name of the Thracian god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis . The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of...

, found in the area of Kali Vrysi. The same hall continues the journey through time to the Iron Age and later years where the main element was the worship of Dionysius at the city of Drama itself and at Kali Vrysi and other areas of the prefecture. In the second hall architectural sculptures, pottery and coins confirm that life continued in the city and throughout the whole prefecture during early Christian, Byzantine and post-Byzantine years.

The visitor is taken through modem recent history by a photographic exhibition relating to the city of Drama, the towns of the prefecture and the mountain villages. The exhibition covers the period from the beginning of Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 occupation up to the middle of the 19th century. In the third hall which is roofed with an atrium, the visitor can admire sculptures arranged into three thematic groups. The first includes architectural sculptures dating from ancient times up to Turkish occupation. The second contains votive monuments connected with the worship of various gods in the Greco-Roman pantheon
Pantheon (gods)
A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

 as well as local deities, with particular reference to Dionysius while the third group of sculptures focuses on funerary monuments from Hellenistic and Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 times.
  • Ecclesiastical Museum

The history of the Christian Church in Drama began during the Byzantine period and underwent difficult and troubled times. From the 14th century when the city was captured by the Ottomans until the 20th century with successive foreign occupations, the Greek Orthodox Church
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 in Drama struggled without end, fed by the blood of many faithful, martyrs to the faith and to the Hellenic
Hellenistic Greece
In the context of Ancient Greek art, architecture, and culture, Hellenistic Greece corresponds to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC...

 ideal and provided succor to its followers through difficult periods.

The collection of icons dating from Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 times to the 20th century forms the basic core of the museum's exhibits. The Museum of the Cathedral of Drama, founded during the reign of the honourable Bishop Dionysius 1st, is now housed in a recently restored five-storey wing of the Bishop of Drama's palace on Venizelou St. In the spacious and well-attended halls, ecclesiastical treasures of priceless spiritual and artistic value are on exhibition. The Icons of the Virgin Ηοdegetria and the Blessing Lord from the 13th century, icons from the 17th century and particularly from the 19th century decorate and sanctify the place. Moreover, the episcopal canonicals, holy vessels and their covers, many from the 19th century, relics of Chrysostomos of Drama and Smyrni, constitute the most important exhibits in the museum.

Many of the exhibits are relics brought by refugees from Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and Pontus in 1922 from the churches of their ancient homes to their new home, valuable reminders of who they were and where they came from. Organized groups of pilgrims and visitors to the city are advised to contact the office of the Diocese of Drama before visiting the museum to make arrangements.

Sport teams

  • Doxa Dramas
    Doxa Dramas
    Doxa Drama F.C. is a football club based in the city of Drama, Greece.The club currently competes in the Superleague Greece.-History:During World War I, near the city of Drama, Macedonia, a team of English soldiers who played football regularly in their camp inspired the local Greek population to...

     - football team
  • Pandramaikos FC - football team
  • KAOD (basketball club) - Basketball team
  • PAOP Neas Amissou - football team

Notable people

  • Mahmud Dramali Pasha
    Mahmud Dramali Pasha
    Mahmud Pasha, called Dramalı was a Beyzade, an Ottoman Vizier, Serdar-ı Ekrem, Pasha and governor of Larissa, Drama and the Morea. In 1822, he was tasked with suppressing the Greek Revolution, but was defeated and died shortly after....

     (1780–1822) - Ottoman General during the Greek Independence War
  • Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
    Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
    Ibrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...

     (1789–1848) ruler of Egypt in 1848 (Son of Muhammad Ali of Egypt
    Muhammad Ali of Egypt
    Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...

    )
  • Basilis C. Xanthopoulos
    Basilis C. Xanthopoulos
    Basilis C. Xanthopoulos was a Greek theoretical physicist, well known in the field of general relativity for his contributions to the study of colliding plane waves....

     (1951–1990) Theoretical Physicist
  • Koulis Stoligkas
    Koulis Stoligkas
    Koulis Stoligkas or Stoligas was a Greek actor. He was born in Drama and died on February 25, 1984 in Athens. He was one of the most loved stars in the Greek cinema and played in several movies including Exo oi kleftes...

     (1910–1984), actor
  • Ioannis Fetfatzidis
    Ioannis Fetfatzidis
    Ioannis Fetfatzidis is a professional Greek footballer. He currently plays for the Greek club Olympiacos F.C. and the Greece national football team.-Early years:...

    , footballer.
  • Nikos Sergianopoulos
    Nikos Sergianopoulos
    Nikos Sergianopoulos , surname also spelled as Seryanopoulos or Seryiannopoulos, was a Greek actor.-Early life and career:Born in Drama, Greece, he graduated from the State Theater of Northern Greece and was a founding member of the Piramatiki Skini Tehnis artwork club in Thessaloniki...

     (1952–2008), Television and stage Actor
  • Giannis Papazisis - actor
  • Natassa Theodoridou
    Natassa Theodoridou
    Natassa Theodoridou , born October 24, 1970 in Thessaloniki, is a well-known Greek singer and the only female Greek artist to have her first three albums achieve platinum status. She has been certified for a total of at least 432 thousand albums and 20 thousand singles sales by IFPI Greece...

     - singer
  • Tania Tsanaklidou
    Tania Tsanaklidou
    Soultana Tsanaklidou is a Greek artist, both singer and actress, who represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978.-Biography:...

     - singer
  • Petros Gaitanos - singer
  • Paschalis Arvanitidis - singer
  • Yesari Asım Arsoy(1900–1992)Classical Turkish Music Composer- singer

External links


Drama ( ˈðrama), the ancient Drabescus , is a town and municipality
Communities and Municipalities of Greece
For the new municipalities of Greece see the Kallikratis ProgrammeThe municipalities and communities of Greece are one of several levels of government within the organizational structure of that country. Thirteen regions called peripheries form the largest unit of government beneath the State. ...

 in northeastern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. Drama is the capital of the peripheral unit
Peripheral units of Greece
The 74 regional units are administrative units of Greece. They are subdivisions of the country's 13 regions, further subdivided into municipalities. They were introduced as part of the "Kallikratis" administrative reform on 1 January 2011 and are comparable in size and often coterminous with the...

 of Drama which is part of the East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace....

 periphery
Peripheries of Greece
The current official regional administrative divisions of Greece were instituted in 1987. Although best translated into English as "regions", the transcription peripheries is sometimes used, perhaps to distinguish them from the traditional regions which they replaced. The English word 'periphery'...

. The town (pop. 42,501 in 2001) is the economic center of the municipality (pop. 55,632), which in turn comprises 53.5 percent of the prefecture's population. The next largest communities in the municipality are Choristi (pop. 2,625), Χiropótamos (2,601), Kalós Agrós (1,216), Kallífytos (1,083), and Koudoúnia (885).

Name

Drama has excellent water resources and may well owe its name to Hydrama (Greek: "having to do with water"), a town which it is believed stood on the same site in ancient times. In the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 era, Drabescus was a trade center and military camp on the Via Egnatia
Via Egnatia
The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed the Roman provinces of Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thrace, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey.Starting at Dyrrachium on the...

. Since the Middle Ages it has been known as Δράμα in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Драма in Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

.

History

In 1912 during the First Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...

, Drama was taken from the Ottomans by Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n troops. Subsequently, in 1913 as a result of the Treaty of Bucharest, following the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...

, it was incorporated into Greece along with the rest of Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace....

.

Drama was occupied by Bulgarian troops from 1941 to 1944 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

The Drama uprising and the Drama massacre

On September 29, 1941, in response to local communist guerrilla attacks against the Bulgarians in the villages of Drama, the Bulgarian occupation forces applied harsh reprisals in Drama, Doxato
Doxato
Doxato is a town and municipality in the Drama peripheral unit, in East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Kalampaki.-Municipality:...

 and several villages like Choristi, Kyrgia, Koudounia and Prosotsani.

The deportation of Drama's Jews

On March 4, 1943 after midnight, there was an action all over Thrace, including in the city of Drama. Bulgarian soldiers led by foot and freight trains all the 4,000 Jews in Thrace, including the 589 from Drama, into Bulgarian territory and assembled them in the tobacco warehouses that were empty this time of year. From there, the Jews were taken by train to the extermination camp of Treblinka. No one of the 589 Jews from Drama came back.

Economy

In the recent past the economy of the Drama area relied heavily on the local paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 and textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

-clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

 industries
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

. However, these industries have either closed down or moved across the border to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, because of the low demands of the Bulgarian workforce, with a negative impact on the local economy and employment. The situation worsened after 2007, when Bulgaria was admitted to the EU, and local Greek businessmen moved to expand their operations there. Other sources of revenue include agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, consisting mainly of tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 plantations, small-scale mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 (particularly of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

) and forestry. Recently, there have been efforts to exploit the rich local natural environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

 and to develop ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

.

There is a modern ski resort
Ski resort
A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing and other winter sports. In Europe a ski resort is a town or village in a ski area - a mountainous area, where there are ski trails and supporting services such as hotels and other accommodation, restaurants, equipment rental and a ski lift system...

 on Mount Falakro
Falakro
Falakro Oros is a mountain in northern Greece, in the prefecture of Drama, Greece. A ski resort is available...

. Drama also hosts an annual short film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

http://www.dramafilmfestival.gr/.

Municipality

The municipality Drama was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units (constituent communities in brackets):
  • Drama (Choristi, Drama, Kallifytos, Kalos Agros, Koudounia, Livadero, Makryplagi, Mavrovatos, Mikrochori, Monastiraki, Mylopotamos, Nikotsaras, Xiropotamos)
  • Sidironero
    Sidironero
    Sidironero is a village and a former community in northern Drama peripheral unit, East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Drama, of which it is a municipal unit...

     (Sidironero, Skaloti)

Population

Year Town Municipal district Municipality
1981 37,118 - -
1991 37,604 - 47,925
2001 42,501 43,485 55,632

Corporation with other cities

Kragujevac
Kragujevac
Kragujevac is the fourth largest city in Serbia, the main city of the Šumadija region and the administrative centre of Šumadija District. It is situated on the banks of the Lepenica River...

, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

Lauf an der Pegnitz
Lauf an der Pegnitz
Lauf an der Pegnitz is a municipality near Nuremberg, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nürnberger Land, in Bavaria....

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...


Culture

Since 1978, Drama hosts a Short Film Festival. In 1987, the festival was recognized nationally. It which was included in 1996 in the National Cultural Network of Cities by the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Museums

  • Archaeological Museum

Two exceptional works of art in copperThe Archaeological Museum of Drama covers human presence in the prefecture of Drama from the mid Paleolithic Period (50,000 years before present) with traces of life from Paleolithic hunts in the caves of the source of the Angitis, up to modern times (1913).

The exhibition space consists of three main halls. In the first archaeological finds from the cave of Maara give witness to the presence of nomadic hunters in the area from the mid Palaeolithic period, while other finds show us about the life of settled farmers and animal rearers from Neolithic villages and the passage of the Copper Age in the city of Drama and the village of Sitagri. The reproduction of a Neolithic house with finds which describe the activities of Neolithic man and his daily activities is the main centre of interest for visitors of all ages.

Bust of Dionysius
Dionysius
The Graeco-Roman name Dionysius, deriving from the name of the Thracian god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis . The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of...

, found in the area of Kali Vrysi. The same hall continues the journey through time to the Iron Age and later years where the main element was the worship of Dionysius at the city of Drama itself and at Kali Vrysi and other areas of the prefecture. In the second hall architectural sculptures, pottery and coins confirm that life continued in the city and throughout the whole prefecture during early Christian, Byzantine and post-Byzantine years.

The visitor is taken through modem recent history by a photographic exhibition relating to the city of Drama, the towns of the prefecture and the mountain villages. The exhibition covers the period from the beginning of Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 occupation up to the middle of the 19th century. In the third hall which is roofed with an atrium, the visitor can admire sculptures arranged into three thematic groups. The first includes architectural sculptures dating from ancient times up to Turkish occupation. The second contains votive monuments connected with the worship of various gods in the Greco-Roman pantheon
Pantheon (gods)
A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

 as well as local deities, with particular reference to Dionysius while the third group of sculptures focuses on funerary monuments from Hellenistic and Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 times.
  • Ecclesiastical Museum

The history of the Christian Church in Drama began during the Byzantine period and underwent difficult and troubled times. From the 14th century when the city was captured by the Ottomans until the 20th century with successive foreign occupations, the Greek Orthodox Church
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 in Drama struggled without end, fed by the blood of many faithful, martyrs to the faith and to the Hellenic
Hellenistic Greece
In the context of Ancient Greek art, architecture, and culture, Hellenistic Greece corresponds to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC...

 ideal and provided succor to its followers through difficult periods.

The collection of icons dating from Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 times to the 20th century forms the basic core of the museum's exhibits. The Museum of the Cathedral of Drama, founded during the reign of the honourable Bishop Dionysius 1st, is now housed in a recently restored five-storey wing of the Bishop of Drama's palace on Venizelou St. In the spacious and well-attended halls, ecclesiastical treasures of priceless spiritual and artistic value are on exhibition. The Icons of the Virgin Ηοdegetria and the Blessing Lord from the 13th century, icons from the 17th century and particularly from the 19th century decorate and sanctify the place. Moreover, the episcopal canonicals, holy vessels and their covers, many from the 19th century, relics of Chrysostomos of Drama and Smyrni, constitute the most important exhibits in the museum.

Many of the exhibits are relics brought by refugees from Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and Pontus in 1922 from the churches of their ancient homes to their new home, valuable reminders of who they were and where they came from. Organized groups of pilgrims and visitors to the city are advised to contact the office of the Diocese of Drama before visiting the museum to make arrangements.

Sport teams

  • Doxa Dramas
    Doxa Dramas
    Doxa Drama F.C. is a football club based in the city of Drama, Greece.The club currently competes in the Superleague Greece.-History:During World War I, near the city of Drama, Macedonia, a team of English soldiers who played football regularly in their camp inspired the local Greek population to...

     - football team
  • Pandramaikos FC - football team
  • KAOD (basketball club) - Basketball team
  • PAOP Neas Amissou - football team

Notable people

  • Mahmud Dramali Pasha
    Mahmud Dramali Pasha
    Mahmud Pasha, called Dramalı was a Beyzade, an Ottoman Vizier, Serdar-ı Ekrem, Pasha and governor of Larissa, Drama and the Morea. In 1822, he was tasked with suppressing the Greek Revolution, but was defeated and died shortly after....

     (1780–1822) - Ottoman General during the Greek Independence War
  • Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
    Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
    Ibrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...

     (1789–1848) ruler of Egypt in 1848 (Son of Muhammad Ali of Egypt
    Muhammad Ali of Egypt
    Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...

    )
  • Basilis C. Xanthopoulos
    Basilis C. Xanthopoulos
    Basilis C. Xanthopoulos was a Greek theoretical physicist, well known in the field of general relativity for his contributions to the study of colliding plane waves....

     (1951–1990) Theoretical Physicist
  • Koulis Stoligkas
    Koulis Stoligkas
    Koulis Stoligkas or Stoligas was a Greek actor. He was born in Drama and died on February 25, 1984 in Athens. He was one of the most loved stars in the Greek cinema and played in several movies including Exo oi kleftes...

     (1910–1984), actor
  • Ioannis Fetfatzidis
    Ioannis Fetfatzidis
    Ioannis Fetfatzidis is a professional Greek footballer. He currently plays for the Greek club Olympiacos F.C. and the Greece national football team.-Early years:...

    , footballer.
  • Nikos Sergianopoulos
    Nikos Sergianopoulos
    Nikos Sergianopoulos , surname also spelled as Seryanopoulos or Seryiannopoulos, was a Greek actor.-Early life and career:Born in Drama, Greece, he graduated from the State Theater of Northern Greece and was a founding member of the Piramatiki Skini Tehnis artwork club in Thessaloniki...

     (1952–2008), Television and stage Actor
  • Giannis Papazisis - actor
  • Natassa Theodoridou
    Natassa Theodoridou
    Natassa Theodoridou , born October 24, 1970 in Thessaloniki, is a well-known Greek singer and the only female Greek artist to have her first three albums achieve platinum status. She has been certified for a total of at least 432 thousand albums and 20 thousand singles sales by IFPI Greece...

     - singer
  • Tania Tsanaklidou
    Tania Tsanaklidou
    Soultana Tsanaklidou is a Greek artist, both singer and actress, who represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978.-Biography:...

     - singer
  • Petros Gaitanos - singer
  • Paschalis Arvanitidis - singer
  • Yesari Asım Arsoy(1900–1992)Classical Turkish Music Composer- singer

External links


Drama ( ˈðrama), the ancient Drabescus , is a town and municipality
Communities and Municipalities of Greece
For the new municipalities of Greece see the Kallikratis ProgrammeThe municipalities and communities of Greece are one of several levels of government within the organizational structure of that country. Thirteen regions called peripheries form the largest unit of government beneath the State. ...

 in northeastern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. Drama is the capital of the peripheral unit
Peripheral units of Greece
The 74 regional units are administrative units of Greece. They are subdivisions of the country's 13 regions, further subdivided into municipalities. They were introduced as part of the "Kallikratis" administrative reform on 1 January 2011 and are comparable in size and often coterminous with the...

 of Drama which is part of the East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace....

 periphery
Peripheries of Greece
The current official regional administrative divisions of Greece were instituted in 1987. Although best translated into English as "regions", the transcription peripheries is sometimes used, perhaps to distinguish them from the traditional regions which they replaced. The English word 'periphery'...

. The town (pop. 42,501 in 2001) is the economic center of the municipality (pop. 55,632), which in turn comprises 53.5 percent of the prefecture's population. The next largest communities in the municipality are Choristi (pop. 2,625), Χiropótamos (2,601), Kalós Agrós (1,216), Kallífytos (1,083), and Koudoúnia (885).

Name

Drama has excellent water resources and may well owe its name to Hydrama (Greek: "having to do with water"), a town which it is believed stood on the same site in ancient times. In the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 era, Drabescus was a trade center and military camp on the Via Egnatia
Via Egnatia
The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed the Roman provinces of Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thrace, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey.Starting at Dyrrachium on the...

. Since the Middle Ages it has been known as Δράμα in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Драма in Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

.

History

In 1912 during the First Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...

, Drama was taken from the Ottomans by Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n troops. Subsequently, in 1913 as a result of the Treaty of Bucharest, following the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...

, it was incorporated into Greece along with the rest of Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace
East Macedonia and Thrace is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Macedonia along with the region of Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace....

.

Drama was occupied by Bulgarian troops from 1941 to 1944 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

The Drama uprising and the Drama massacre

On September 29, 1941, in response to local communist guerrilla attacks against the Bulgarians in the villages of Drama, the Bulgarian occupation forces applied harsh reprisals in Drama, Doxato
Doxato
Doxato is a town and municipality in the Drama peripheral unit, in East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Kalampaki.-Municipality:...

 and several villages like Choristi, Kyrgia, Koudounia and Prosotsani.

The deportation of Drama's Jews

On March 4, 1943 after midnight, there was an action all over Thrace, including in the city of Drama. Bulgarian soldiers led by foot and freight trains all the 4,000 Jews in Thrace, including the 589 from Drama, into Bulgarian territory and assembled them in the tobacco warehouses that were empty this time of year. From there, the Jews were taken by train to the extermination camp of Treblinka. No one of the 589 Jews from Drama came back.

Economy

In the recent past the economy of the Drama area relied heavily on the local paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 and textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

-clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

 industries
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

. However, these industries have either closed down or moved across the border to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, because of the low demands of the Bulgarian workforce, with a negative impact on the local economy and employment. The situation worsened after 2007, when Bulgaria was admitted to the EU, and local Greek businessmen moved to expand their operations there. Other sources of revenue include agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, consisting mainly of tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 plantations, small-scale mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 (particularly of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

) and forestry. Recently, there have been efforts to exploit the rich local natural environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

 and to develop ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

.

There is a modern ski resort
Ski resort
A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing and other winter sports. In Europe a ski resort is a town or village in a ski area - a mountainous area, where there are ski trails and supporting services such as hotels and other accommodation, restaurants, equipment rental and a ski lift system...

 on Mount Falakro
Falakro
Falakro Oros is a mountain in northern Greece, in the prefecture of Drama, Greece. A ski resort is available...

. Drama also hosts an annual short film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

http://www.dramafilmfestival.gr/.

Municipality

The municipality Drama was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units (constituent communities in brackets):
  • Drama (Choristi, Drama, Kallifytos, Kalos Agros, Koudounia, Livadero, Makryplagi, Mavrovatos, Mikrochori, Monastiraki, Mylopotamos, Nikotsaras, Xiropotamos)
  • Sidironero
    Sidironero
    Sidironero is a village and a former community in northern Drama peripheral unit, East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Drama, of which it is a municipal unit...

     (Sidironero, Skaloti)

Population

Year Town Municipal district Municipality
1981 37,118 - -
1991 37,604 - 47,925
2001 42,501 43,485 55,632

Corporation with other cities

Kragujevac
Kragujevac
Kragujevac is the fourth largest city in Serbia, the main city of the Šumadija region and the administrative centre of Šumadija District. It is situated on the banks of the Lepenica River...

, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

Lauf an der Pegnitz
Lauf an der Pegnitz
Lauf an der Pegnitz is a municipality near Nuremberg, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nürnberger Land, in Bavaria....

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...


Culture

Since 1978, Drama hosts a Short Film Festival. In 1987, the festival was recognized nationally. It which was included in 1996 in the National Cultural Network of Cities by the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Museums

  • Archaeological Museum

Two exceptional works of art in copperThe Archaeological Museum of Drama covers human presence in the prefecture of Drama from the mid Paleolithic Period (50,000 years before present) with traces of life from Paleolithic hunts in the caves of the source of the Angitis, up to modern times (1913).

The exhibition space consists of three main halls. In the first archaeological finds from the cave of Maara give witness to the presence of nomadic hunters in the area from the mid Palaeolithic period, while other finds show us about the life of settled farmers and animal rearers from Neolithic villages and the passage of the Copper Age in the city of Drama and the village of Sitagri. The reproduction of a Neolithic house with finds which describe the activities of Neolithic man and his daily activities is the main centre of interest for visitors of all ages.

Bust of Dionysius
Dionysius
The Graeco-Roman name Dionysius, deriving from the name of the Thracian god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis . The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of...

, found in the area of Kali Vrysi. The same hall continues the journey through time to the Iron Age and later years where the main element was the worship of Dionysius at the city of Drama itself and at Kali Vrysi and other areas of the prefecture. In the second hall architectural sculptures, pottery and coins confirm that life continued in the city and throughout the whole prefecture during early Christian, Byzantine and post-Byzantine years.

The visitor is taken through modem recent history by a photographic exhibition relating to the city of Drama, the towns of the prefecture and the mountain villages. The exhibition covers the period from the beginning of Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 occupation up to the middle of the 19th century. In the third hall which is roofed with an atrium, the visitor can admire sculptures arranged into three thematic groups. The first includes architectural sculptures dating from ancient times up to Turkish occupation. The second contains votive monuments connected with the worship of various gods in the Greco-Roman pantheon
Pantheon (gods)
A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

 as well as local deities, with particular reference to Dionysius while the third group of sculptures focuses on funerary monuments from Hellenistic and Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 times.
  • Ecclesiastical Museum

The history of the Christian Church in Drama began during the Byzantine period and underwent difficult and troubled times. From the 14th century when the city was captured by the Ottomans until the 20th century with successive foreign occupations, the Greek Orthodox Church
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 in Drama struggled without end, fed by the blood of many faithful, martyrs to the faith and to the Hellenic
Hellenistic Greece
In the context of Ancient Greek art, architecture, and culture, Hellenistic Greece corresponds to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC...

 ideal and provided succor to its followers through difficult periods.

The collection of icons dating from Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 times to the 20th century forms the basic core of the museum's exhibits. The Museum of the Cathedral of Drama, founded during the reign of the honourable Bishop Dionysius 1st, is now housed in a recently restored five-storey wing of the Bishop of Drama's palace on Venizelou St. In the spacious and well-attended halls, ecclesiastical treasures of priceless spiritual and artistic value are on exhibition. The Icons of the Virgin Ηοdegetria and the Blessing Lord from the 13th century, icons from the 17th century and particularly from the 19th century decorate and sanctify the place. Moreover, the episcopal canonicals, holy vessels and their covers, many from the 19th century, relics of Chrysostomos of Drama and Smyrni, constitute the most important exhibits in the museum.

Many of the exhibits are relics brought by refugees from Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and Pontus in 1922 from the churches of their ancient homes to their new home, valuable reminders of who they were and where they came from. Organized groups of pilgrims and visitors to the city are advised to contact the office of the Diocese of Drama before visiting the museum to make arrangements.

Sport teams

  • Doxa Dramas
    Doxa Dramas
    Doxa Drama F.C. is a football club based in the city of Drama, Greece.The club currently competes in the Superleague Greece.-History:During World War I, near the city of Drama, Macedonia, a team of English soldiers who played football regularly in their camp inspired the local Greek population to...

     - football team
  • Pandramaikos FC - football team
  • KAOD (basketball club) - Basketball team
  • PAOP Neas Amissou - football team

Notable people

  • Mahmud Dramali Pasha
    Mahmud Dramali Pasha
    Mahmud Pasha, called Dramalı was a Beyzade, an Ottoman Vizier, Serdar-ı Ekrem, Pasha and governor of Larissa, Drama and the Morea. In 1822, he was tasked with suppressing the Greek Revolution, but was defeated and died shortly after....

     (1780–1822) - Ottoman General during the Greek Independence War
  • Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
    Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt
    Ibrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...

     (1789–1848) ruler of Egypt in 1848 (Son of Muhammad Ali of Egypt
    Muhammad Ali of Egypt
    Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...

    )
  • Basilis C. Xanthopoulos
    Basilis C. Xanthopoulos
    Basilis C. Xanthopoulos was a Greek theoretical physicist, well known in the field of general relativity for his contributions to the study of colliding plane waves....

     (1951–1990) Theoretical Physicist
  • Koulis Stoligkas
    Koulis Stoligkas
    Koulis Stoligkas or Stoligas was a Greek actor. He was born in Drama and died on February 25, 1984 in Athens. He was one of the most loved stars in the Greek cinema and played in several movies including Exo oi kleftes...

     (1910–1984), actor
  • Ioannis Fetfatzidis
    Ioannis Fetfatzidis
    Ioannis Fetfatzidis is a professional Greek footballer. He currently plays for the Greek club Olympiacos F.C. and the Greece national football team.-Early years:...

    , footballer.
  • Nikos Sergianopoulos
    Nikos Sergianopoulos
    Nikos Sergianopoulos , surname also spelled as Seryanopoulos or Seryiannopoulos, was a Greek actor.-Early life and career:Born in Drama, Greece, he graduated from the State Theater of Northern Greece and was a founding member of the Piramatiki Skini Tehnis artwork club in Thessaloniki...

     (1952–2008), Television and stage Actor
  • Giannis Papazisis - actor
  • Natassa Theodoridou
    Natassa Theodoridou
    Natassa Theodoridou , born October 24, 1970 in Thessaloniki, is a well-known Greek singer and the only female Greek artist to have her first three albums achieve platinum status. She has been certified for a total of at least 432 thousand albums and 20 thousand singles sales by IFPI Greece...

     - singer
  • Tania Tsanaklidou
    Tania Tsanaklidou
    Soultana Tsanaklidou is a Greek artist, both singer and actress, who represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978.-Biography:...

     - singer
  • Petros Gaitanos - singer
  • Paschalis Arvanitidis - singer
  • Yesari Asım Arsoy(1900–1992)Classical Turkish Music Composer- singer

External links



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