The windmill of Tziotakis is the best preserve mill currently dominating the windmill complex of Dryopida. It was built in approximately 1910 using stone, it has a wooden conical roof, and is approximately 6 metres tall. Mr Antonis Vitalis, son in law of Tziotakis and the last miller to have worked there for 14 years, knows even the most minute detail, as he tells us, “about how it was constructed, how it operated, everything, down to the last nail. The windmill is a wooden factory”.
The windmill, he explains, consists of three floors. The bottom floor was used for storing grain, the middle floor contained the “rudder”, and the third floor contained the 7-metre long shaft, namely, the system that transmitted the motion. That is where the miller would sit and control the “rudder”, determining how fine or coarse the four would be, by moving the runner stone.
The mobile turning roof, known as the troula (cap) with which the windshaft was connected, had four 5- to 6-metre stocks (beams used to mount the sails). The sails were placed there, completing the setup. Depending on the direction and intensity of the wind, the miller would correct the position of the sails and the cap, and he would open and close the sails.
Mylotopia
Windmills around hamlets are usually found in groups in the so-called mylotopia and they do not follow a linear course, but rather are located at the tops of the surrounding hills. The space around each mill had to remain free, so as not to obstruct the natural flow of the winds and leave the milling front free. The mills impacted the street planning of the areas in which they were built, as there had to be suitable passage to them for the animals loaded with grain to get to them easily.
Beer from Kythnos…
Kythnos barley was unique, it did not thrive on any other island and was of a very high quality. The crops were enough for the island and for exporting to the rest of Greece. Until the 70s, the well-known Fix brewery absorbed almost the entire production of barley on Kythnos (approximately 200 tonnes annually) for its beers. In September the millers loaded their donkeys with the sacks the women had woven and took them to the existing docks (Kanala, Episkopi, Ag. Stefanos, Skylos, Gaidouromandra, Ag. Dimitris, Flambouria), where the boats waited to ship them to Athens.
Millers
The miller’s profession was not open to everyone, as the knowhow was passed on almost exclusively from father to son or father-in-law to son-in-law. It was hard and lonely work, exclusively done by men. It required physical strength, so that the miller could move the cap against the wind, lift the weight, and keep the millstones clean.
Work started at 5 in the morning and, depending on the weather, could continue until nightfall. With a northern wind, which is considered the ideal wind for milling, they could produce up to 50 kilos of flour per hour.
Their fee was usually 10% of the product, and that is why they had to be fair and just in their transactions. Millers made sure not to mix their customer’s grinds, so they separated and marked them. Most often they loaded the grinds and delivered them to their customers’ homes themselves.
