The most complete information guide about Athens, Greece
The
Evzones Changing
of the Guard
Every
Sunday at 11:00, tourists gather in front of the Parliament
building on Syntagma Square (Plateia Syntagmatos) to watch the
ceremonial changing of the guard in front of the Tomb of the
Unknown Soldier. The guards (Evzones) wear their traditional
white kilts, red and black caps and red clogs with pompoms only
that day or on special occasions. On every other day, the Evzones
wear regular khaki uniforms with skirts and the changing of
the guard takes place every hour on the hour, 24 hours a day.
The guards are tall and well-trained soldiers. They belong to
the "Proedriki Froura", the guards of the President
of Democracy. It is a high honor for every Greek soldier to
be chosen as an Evzone.
Each soldier mounts guard for one hour at a stretch, 3 times
every 48 hours. They work in pairs in order to perfect the coordination
of their movements. Originally
founded as a royal guard in 1868, this elite corps has about
120 members and enjoys much better accommodations and conditions
than the typical Greek army conscript. Much seen and photographed
by international tourists and local visitors alike, the ‘tall
guys’ guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the
parliament (Vouli) are famous in their own right. Yet little
is actually known about them.
The Evzones
The Evzones or Tsoliades wear the traditional and historically
meaningful uniform and receive exclusive forms of training and
benefits. With a history spanning over more than a century,
the Greek Presidential Guard was officially founded in 1868
as a regiment of the Greek army. Today, the duties of the Evzones
are of a purely ceremonial nature. The team of Evzones (meaning
the ‘well-belted’, a term traced to Homer’s
time) is also called the Corps, Flag Guard, Palace Guard and
Royal Guard, the last two vestiges of the royal regime. Their
training camp is located very near to the Parliament building
and one will often see them marching ceremoniously back and
forth along Vas. Sofias Avenue and Irodou Attikou Street whilst
changing shifts.
Although soldiers making up this unit do not sleep at the training
camp throughout the week and are said to be offered more food
portions than the average soldier is, they are also expected
to be on a constant alert and yet show no reaction to anything.
For there are plenty of tourists who, while having their snapshot
taken standing next to the motionless Evzones, quite predictably
attempt to make the guards laugh or even twist. A Presidential
Guard in normal uniform is always around however to prevent
things from getting out of hand.
During
a demonstration in front of the Parliament in 2001, a
Molotov cocktail was thrown at one of the guardhouses.
In no time, the wooden construction was engulfed in flames.
The Evzone standing next to it didn’t even blink
his eyes, let alone move, until the guard in standard
uniform came and gave him the order to move. With a scorched
and partly smoking uniform on one side, the Evzone did.
Contemporary duties
The
Presidential Guard is naturally not involved in any fighting
activities, although up to WW II, it was regarded the strongest
and bravest part of the Greek army. Their uniform is a reproduction
of the outfit proudly worn by guerrilla fighters during the
Ottoman Occupation of Greece (1453 – 1821). Nowadays,
young men doing their army duty are hand-picked for the Presidential
guard according to specific categories such as height (they
have to be over 1,87 meters– 6,13 feet), character, moral
outlook and good health, general appearance and stamina.
Those who join the corps, first complete five and a half months
of their basic military training and then receive one month
of specific training as Presidential Guard, which they serve
for the following five months. The notoriously tough specific
training involves the development of the ability to stand still
for an hour and the perfecting of their trademark synchronized
ceremonial gait when changing guard.
“Of
course it takes a lot of training to become an Evzone.”,
says Colonel Efstathios Siamitros of the Presidential Guard.
“Have you ever attempted standing completely still for
five minutes? If you do, you’ll get an idea of what it
may mean to do that for an entire hour.” To somewhat help
the situation, their ceremonial steps are carried out in slow
motion so as to protect their blood circulation following the
literally motionless 60 minutes.
The Presidential guard has the following duties:
•
on a 24 hour bases, guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
the Presidential
Mansion and the gates of the Presidential Guard training
camp.
• the official raising and lowering of the flag (at
9am and 6pm respectively) every
Sunday at the Acropolis.
• accompanying the President of the Republic on official
foreign visits .
• offering honors and welcoming foreign officials on
visit .
• an annual parade on New York’s 5th Av. in celebration
of Greece’s 25 March
Independence Day.
A meaningful uniform
The uniform is a traditional representation of Greece's historic
mountain guerrillas, the Klephts (thieves) and armatoles (bandits),
which resisted the Turkish occupation and fought hard in the War
of Independence. The skirt/kilt is called a 'fustanella' in Greek.
There are 400 pleats in it; one for each year of the Turkish occupation.
The Evzones have professional steam irons in the barracks and
they have to iron them themselves. The uniforms are made by special
craftsman in workshops within the barracks and take 80 days to
make. Officers wear an older more elaborate form of the uniform
and since the Second World War, Evzones from Crete wear blue breeches
and caps with white boots.
The
uniforms (there are several kinds) are all hand-made at the
tailor’s department of the Presidential Guard training
camp. There, some ten individuals, skilled in hand-embroidery
and machine sewing, painstaking prepare the uniforms over long
periods of time. The Evzones waistcoat alone takes up to one
month to sew. World-famous ‘tsarouchi’ shoes are
also manufactured at the camp’s shoe-making department
by three to four men trained in the craft. Each tsarouchi, a
leather clog with black pompoms, weighs 1,5 kilogram and has
sixty nails studded into the soles so that the Evzones don’t
slip.
The
main parts of the Evzone uniform are:
•
the hat made of red baize with a silk tassel
• the shirt, white with very wide sleeves
• the waistcoat, hand embroidered with great skill. Various
designs of great traditional and folklore importance
are
embroidered on the waistcoat in white or gilt thread
• the kilt (foustanella) made from 30 meters of white
material with 400 pleats representing the 400 years of
the
Turkish occupation
• the breeches, the long red trousers of the officers
and the
white woollen stockings of the Evzones
• the cartridge belt
• the garters, black for the Evzones and blue for the
officers.
Apart
from the above which are common to both Evzones and officers,
there are also
•
the gaiters, the red boots and the 1821 sabre of the officers
• the inside garter, which holds the stockings in position
• the fringe (blue and white colored braids, the colors
of the Greek flag)
• the "tsarouchia", the traditional shoes of
the Evzones.
The
outfit’s variations include (from left to right) the ‘Cretan
uniform’, an adaptation of traditional Cretan garments
representing all Greek islands, the Macedonian blue woollen
winter uniform, the cotton summer uniform which is the official
version reserved for special ceremonies, the modernized
mainland uniform as well as and the traditional uniform
of Pontos.
Throughout their entire service, each Evzone teams up with
a partner. Between them they share both training and duties.
Mutual help is also appreciated when donning the uniforms,
a task that can prove time-consuming. Slipping into the official
uniform, for instance, may take up to half an hour. Help also
comes in handy with smoothing the black tassel atop the Evzones
red cap, or ‘fessi’, straightening
the collar or tying properly the two-part fustanella, the
traditional 400-fold kilt. Through the hottest summer and
the coldest winter, the Evzones invariably wear white woollen
stockings and a leather belt with bullet holders to emphasize
the waist of the ‘well-belted’
soldier.
The sculpture on the Tomb the Evzones guard, shows a Greek
soldier while the inscriptions scattered around the tomb quote
fragments from Perikles' Funeral Oration of 430 BC, delivered
after the first year of the Peloponnesian war to honor the
fallen Athenians as well as the names of places where the
Greeks have fought in different wars. It was designed by architect
Emmanuel Lazaridis. In April 1929 work began and the monument
was completed in March 1932. It was inaugurated on the National
Holiday of the same year.