The recent archaeological find overlooking the construction of the new Heraklion Airport should halt knee-jerk development on Crete. A 4,000-year-old Minoan structure of monumental proportions now stands in the way of the planned development of a significant construction project on Crete, as it should. For years, I’ve warned the leadership, business contemporaries, and the public about this island’s looming catastrophe of overdevelopment. So, let’s get to it, starting with the Kasteli discovery.
Kasteli Airport Blunder
The new airport near Kasteli is a transformation of a WW2 Nazi-Era airfield built to help supply Field Marshall Erwin Rommel in North Africa. The project has been controversial, with most locals opposing its construction for various reasons. However, all projects involving the development of tourism products almost immediately get the green light from regulators here.
This most recent stumbling block, a mysterious maze-like structure atop a hill overlooking construction, may be crucial for planning the right future for Crete Island. The Ministry of Culture of Greece recently described the 157-foot diameter structure this way as a possible feasting and ritual site built about 4,000 BC. The circular structure could have been constructed during the MM IA or pre-palatial period (my estimation). So far, its purpose and significance are unknown. The archaeological site sits atop Papoura Hill, where “planners” initially intended to put a radar station.
Culture Minister Lina Mendoni split the proverbial baby in her statement that construction of the airport could continue and that an alternative site for the radar station could be found. This is the problem with Greek decision-making. The mindset of all leadership is geared to antiquated ideas of what progress should be. No one has the courage, intuition, or mindset to stand on what’s pointedly obvious. All construction on Crete, huge-scale developments, should be halted until wiser planning can be set in motion. For the reader unaware, the most expert archaeologists on this island will acknowledge at least 100 “palace/city” sites as yet unearthed on Crete. One archaeologist, who I shall not name because he asked me not to quote him on the numbers said there are “hundreds” of such sites.
I am reminded of a project for the German supermarket chain Lidl being built on top of a Minoan royal road some years back. That project ended up being completed. The solution was for Lidl to make a small exhibit of sections of the road in the store’s basement parking lot. Now, there’s a concession. The Germans should have been forced to halt construction completely. Heraklion currently has five stores operating across Heraklion. As an aside, these stores send their profits back to Germany, and they put small Cretan operations out of business, too. We have the same problem in America with Walmart. Thousands of family businesses have been shuttered in my country so that the Waltons could become the wealthiest family in the world. Grab onto that Greek people since your country eclipses mine as a sellout government.
The Kasteli (tower) is an unprecedented find in the Mediterranean. Further study and excavation will reveal volumes of information about our ancient past. By the way, the civilization referred to as Minoan is not Minoan. Keftiu is the more likely name for everything for everything popularizes as Minoan. I mention this because it shows how little the greatest experts have discovered. It also reveals that the “identity” of the mysterious people who once dominated the seas was one of the first compromises Greek officials permitted. They decided to move forward like the airport project or a hundred others planned. Keftiu people roll in their tholos tombs being called Minoans, I’ll bet. Just like they’re spinning over the ceremonial places already paved over by brilliant Greek (German and British) developers pushed through. I may go too far. More is needed. So, let me continue.
Hotels, Hotels, Hotels, and More Hotels
Hoteliers. On Crete, they are the guardians of profitability and caretakers of legendary Cretan Phyloxenia. They are also bean counters who, by and large, do not give a damn about Crete’s heritage, tradition, or future. They are the rich kids of former landowners (usually) who make deals with the Germans (TUI) and others to snag easy money. I say “easy” because they work at revenue and hospitality the way they always have, the way the privileged always have. Change! Well, that’s expensive. The only change a Crete hotel mogul will make is importing Egyptians or Pakistanis to serve guests when Cretans are no longer willing to work for slave wages. TUI, the Walmart of travel, has driven prices down so far the Greeks will soon have to give vacation nights away for free.
Enter my favorite lunatic hotelier operation, Metaxa Group. They are a favorite because they have a PR guy whose most significant job is to throw out the idea Metaxa’s hotels are greener than Elon Musk’s Tesla cars. Cretans own Metaxa. Metaxa should care as much about innovating and aligning with regenerative tourism as any company in Crete. But they don’t. They are not alone; every significant hotel I know of operating on the North Coast of Crete thinks and acts the same way. BUILD MORE OF THE SAME – WIN MORE! Metaxa’s plan to develop 1,400,000 m2 of property on pristine Cape Tholos near Kavousi of Ierapetra Prefecture of Crete is a prime example.
Interestingly, the Ministry of Culture and Sports recently approved the Strategic Environmental Impact Study (SES) of the Special Spatial Development Strategic Investment Plan (ESHASE) for the CAPE THOLOS investment project (Metaxa’s Maris Hotels SA). The genius plan, modified from a monumental 5-star coastal eyesore to only accomodate 1,044 beds, will also have a helipad and a marina. Luckily, the “competent” Greek ministries nixed the idea of an artificial beach (in Greek) for the complex. Metaxa Group owns almost the entire Tholos Cape, as the environmental graphic below indicates.
Thank the gods of the ancients, Metaxa did not initially plan a radar station for the Tholos Cape development. However, given what my archaeologist colleagues suggest and the perfect harbour this bay represents, it’s a safe bet the Minoans (Keftiu) had substantial structures here, too. But, of course, the news is partly about the high paying (Ha, ha, ha) 1,640 seasonal and 46 permanent jobs the new complex will create. The nationalities of those hospitality workers are, as yet, unknown. It’s PR jargon used for every announcement ever created for engineering something on top of nature or heritage. The Hellenic Ministry of Development goes so far as to publicize the Tholos project as “Advanced Touristic Development in Lassithi.” I wonder if there was any doubt about Metaxa’s grand plans for this beautiful, isolated bay?
Crete the Commodity
The airport project, Mataxa Group’s continued (old school) investment and development strategies and a few others remind me of the horrendous Itanos Gaia development lauded by the Hellenic Foreign Ministry here. Minoan Group PLC obtained the green light in much the same way the airport and various hotel developments on the island have taken place – expeditiously. However, the London firm has, so far, been unable to gather investors for the potentially disasterous Itanos resort development in Crete’s wild Far-East region. According to Morningstar, Minoan will partner with an anonymous hotel group to complete the massive project. The “Itanos Gaia“ project is for the tourist development of an area of 25.000.000 sq.m. at Cavo Sidero, near Kyriamadi Natural Park (Insta below by Jens Braida).
In 2021, Professor Dimitris Milonakis of the University of Crete and his colleagues authored a study about Gaia entitled “Phantom investments, hegemony and the chameleon of dispossession: tourism development at Cavo Sidero- Crete, Greece.” In the end, the study was punctuated by a survey of local people about their perceptions of the lunatic (my term) project to transform one of Crete’s most remote and beautiful areas. There were protests and official objects galore about Gaia. Still, like these other projects, the public’s best interests were the last concern. Milonakis framed his work on hegemony and the imposition of dispossession, which is precisely the economic and political dynamic ruining Crete Island today. Put more simply by Dr. Milonakis (and Sarah Britton), “tourism travel and production system as an important driver of geographically uneven capitalist accumulation.”
Everything and everyone on Crete Island is a commodity for the current flock of bean counters running Greece, Crete, Europe, and the world. This is no revelation, but it should be a wake-up call. Being capitalized upon is one thing, but being robbed of the future is another. The Kasteli Airport is a perfect example of a system gone wrong, as the others mentioned. Instead of flying more tourists to Crete and feeding and housing them at lower prices, the geniuses running the show should be thinking long-term. Most of these people have kids, after all. And from what some of them tell me, all their big business moves are meant to enhance their children’s futures. They are either full of malarky or just dumb.
Tourism is already being transformed because super-capitalism cannot be sustainable. There are answers and ideas, but people like the Capital Institute’s John Fullerton need to get more attention. Fullerton’s Regenerative Economics is a paradigm shift that is not a possibility but an eventuality. A quote from Fullerton in a recent interview hammers home my points for me:
It just boils down to this: exponential growth on a finite planet—it won’t work.
And Crete is an Island, a finite paradise in the middle of a finite world. Every impact here is multiplied. Think about this, you genius hoteliers and ministry bureaucrats.