this is the place to be,
the
village of Vrontados is on the Greek island of Chios, up to 80,000 rockets are lunched from two villages, aimed at each villages church, still it could have been worse, real
cannons were used until 1889! to mitigate the damage the
churches and surrounding homes reinforce their buildings with metal plates and
mesh, also hoses are manned until the war dies down, opps, should I have said womaned? in these PC times I am always making a bit of mess of modern phrases and being un PC, note to self, must not upset the snowflakes, back to the war, every
Easter, the town lights up with a war between two churches called Rouketopolemos (rocket
war), the congregations of Agios Markos (St. Marks) and Panagia Erithiani
assemble their homemade rockets on the night before Orthodox Easter and fire
away until after midnight, with the aim of hitting the bell tower of the rival
church, the tradition dates back to the occupation of the Ottoman Empire, but
no one really knows the origins of the war, and the good news is that there is never a "winner"
declared, so the battles can be continued the next year, despite the danger,
Rouketopolemos is a tourist draw for Vrontados, the footage above is from the
2019 rocket war, thank goodness the UK health and safety jobsworths are not
there!
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