More than 100 photographers from all over her Northern Greece, participated in the “Blossoming Cherries” Photo Contest as part of the “Blossoming Routes – Lefkadios Hern” organized by the Pieria Regional Unit and the Pieria Organization for Tourism Development and Promotion (POTAP), in Kolindros and Rachi Pieria, where the largest cherry trees are located law’s.
Within a period of a few weeks, dozens of electronic files were submitted by e-mail to the POTAP e-mail address with a total of 374 photos and at the last event of the Cherry Blossoms (14/4) held in Rachi Pieria, in the presence of the Deputy Minister of Development Anna Mani-Papadimitriou and the president of EOT Angelas Gerekou- inspirer of “Blooming Routes – Lefkadios Hern” the 5 winning photographers with the best photos were announced.
These are Vasso Kourtis, Giorgos Soumelidis, Eleni Karaiskou, Dimitris Kontodimitropoulos and Ourania Binou who received commemorative awards while distinctions were awarded for their photographs to Athanasios Karakousis, Anastasia Theodorou, Vasilis Karavasilis, Eugenia Patsiu, Chrysoula Katsamaga. Most of the photographers took advantage of the unique background of Olympus rising in the southwest of the cherry trees, the white of the flowers and the contrast of colors and people in the white of the flowers and the green of nature.
“The participation was particularly encouraging and indeed the agenda of the “Blossoming Cherries” photo competition was enviable. Landscapes, cherry blossoms, man in nature, the color impression of the flowers of the plant that is the harbinger of spring, the cherry blossom horizon, cherries and Olympus, were among the many suggestions of the photo’s agenda” the director of POTAP Vassilis Dimos told APE-MPE .
“After all, the flowering of the cherry tree creates an ecstatic landscape of unique value out of things, highlighting at the same time the most beautiful elements of human emotions”, he added.
The 10 photos that were awarded will be used multiple times as, as Mr. Dimos said, “they will form the agenda in the respective publications of the Pieria Regional Unit and the Pieria Organization for Tourism Development and Promotion”.
Schools held classes in the cherry blossoms
“The (new) institution of the “Cherry Blossoms of Pieria”, in addition to highlighting the all-important agricultural product, as well as its touristic and social dimension, also has an educational character, the organizers emphasize, as it gave the opportunity to school students of Primary Education in the prefecture of Pieria, to get to know the unique landscape highlighted by the cherry blossoms, the first flowering tree of spring, as its forerunner, to enjoy the environment, to be informed about sustainable development, to shape the images of those who are informed and taught at the production sites of the product, to browse among the blooming cherry trees and capture some of the visual and photographic expressions of the volunteers. Before the events, dozens of children’s drawings from several schools in the municipalities of Katerini and Pydna-Kolindro were handed over to the organizers to form the material of a separate student exhibition, the content of which was hung on the branches of the cherry blossoms in the location “Asprogianni” Kolindro and in the facilities of the Cooperative in Rachi.
Primary schools and kindergartens visited from last Monday (April 15) the cherry-bearing areas of Kolindros and Rachis, where on the two days of April 13-14, 2024, the Regional Unit of Pieria and the Pieria Tourism Development and Promotion Organization (P.O.T. A.P.) as organizers successfully implemented the institutional framework “Blooming Cherries of Pieria” within the framework of “Blooming Routes – Lefkadios Hern” of the E.O.T.
Source: RES
