Uploaded to YouTube by fonitisydras

Uploaded to YouTube by Κωνσταντίνος Κουκουδάκης

On March 25, Greeks celebrate the Greek National Anniversary, a major religious holiday with military parades in the larger towns and cities, celebrating Greece’s victory in the war of Independence against the Turks, who had occupied the country for 400 years.

Hydriots celebrate with a parade along the port front of the local schoolchildren dressed in traditional folk costume and marching to the beat of their own drums. (Residents will be well aware of the approaching festivities as the kids begin practicing their drumming skills about a week before the event.)

Traditional Greek dancing by the older schoolchildren follows the parade.

Hydra’s Independence Day Parade and Dancing, 2013

Uploaded to YouTube by Κωνσταντίνος Κουκουδάκης

Hydra is famed for its Miaoulia festival, held on the weekend closest to June 21 in honour of Admiral Miaoulis, an important Hydriot naval commander in the Greek War of Independence (1821–1827). Part of “Navy Week,” the festival lasts three days and consist of a series of celebratory events, including boat races, folk dancing, athletic, artistic, and other cultural exhibitions, concerts, and the like. Miaoulia closes with its highlight: a reenactment by locals of the sinking by Miaoulis’s men of a Turkish flagship, featuring the siege and burning of an actual boat in the harbor culminating in a spectacular fireworks display.

Miaoulia videos

Uploaded to YouTube by Hilda Eksiyan

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Easter (Πάσχα) on Hydra 2012

On Good Friday (Μεγάλη Παρασκευή) villagers carry candles and follow the procession of the Epitaph. After the Epitaph (or Christ’s funeral bier), decorated with flowers, has been processed all over the town, it ends up to the port and the people who carry it get it in the sea, so that both the people and the sea are blessed by the Holy Epitaph. (see videos below).

Uploaded to YouTube by mygreecetravel

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