{"Title":"Easter Lights","Description":{"Value":"

Christos Piliouras:
My name is Christos Piliouras and I was born and live in Leonidio.

Sky lanterns are our hobby, our passion. The first lantern I made, and it flew away, OK...It was crazy. I was so happy.

The lantern is made out of sixteen sheets of paper. We start with pairs, like we are doing now, and then go on to eights. Then we start to put it all together. The sides, the edges.

Now we get to the dome, what we call ‘koubes’.

In the past, they were red and yellow, which symbolised the colours of Leonidio: the yellow of the houses and the red of the rock. Now, they’ve progressed, and they are different colours, multicoloured.

The lantern is finished and we go on to the hardest part, the reed. We cut the reed from the rivers in the village. We cut them at Christmas; we start preparations at Christmas.

We light the fire and off it goes!

On the night of the Resurrection, at midnight, we release about 2,000 lanterns. The sky is filled with them. We’ve heard that they have gone much further away, as far as Spetses.

For us, they symbolise human souls. On the night of the Resurection, every family, every household, has lost somebody, and this symbolises the person they have lost.

We’re not going to stop. A tradition is a tradition, and a passion is a passion. More every year. Every year, more lanterns will be released from Leonidio.

"}}

Easter Lights

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