Lesvos oil

The story of the olive and the oil in Lesvos has a history of three thousand years. THE olive grove Lesvos of antiquity continued to produce olive oil for local consumption both during the Byzantine period and during the Gatelouze period. The intensification of olive cultivation took place at the end of the Ottoman years.

The 1880s marked the beginning of intensive mechanization, thanks to excellent harvests and favorable conditions (monoculture, local fuel from stone fruit, tax exemptions for foreign investments.

In 1913 in Lesvos were registered 113 modern steam-powered olive mills, 6 steam-powered nuclear power plants, 8 steam-powered soap factories, 79 classic oil mills, but also 34 simple soap factories.

In the first decade of the 20th century the industry based on the utilization of olives reaches its peak. The Lesvos oil and soaps, travel from Lesvos to Trabzon, Thrace, Istanbul, the Dodecanese and Antalya.

A series of events gradually led to the decline and closure of factories until the middle of the 20th century. The reasons briefly were the unification of Lesvos with Greece (1912) and the cut from the markets of the Ottoman Empire, the global economic instability of the 20s and 30s, the October Revolution that cut off Lesvos from the markets of Russia , the Asia Minor catastrophe, the discovery of detergents.

One hundred years after the imposing factories were at their peak, today most of them are abandoned trunks, signs of a glorious era.

At the end of the 20th century most of industrial buildings are characterized preservable and are saved from the building block.

Nowadays six only of these operate with the same use as oil press, others have changed use but always in the context of processing, three have been restored and have been made museums of themselves as the Museum of Industrial Olive Oil of Lesvos in Agia Paraskevi, the Olive Mill-Museum Vrana in Papados and Soap Museum in the Polykentro of the Municipality of Plomari, a few were turned into places of Culture, while three or four were turned into hotels and hostels.

The oil industry of Lesvos in recent years is trying to make a dynamic come back and utilize the fruit of the eleven million olive trees of the island, creating quality olive oils and winning distinctions in international competitions.