Cultural and historical heritage is a significant value for any society of any size. It does not matter where a person lives in a small village that can be hardly found on the map or in a huge megapolis – any area of residence should provide conditions for his intellectual enrichment. The Greek authorities are aware of that and actively promote the program on the intellectual development of rural areas. From 2007 to 2013, thanks to the hand-on assistance of the municipality of Sithonia and the refunding program (one spent over €1 million on renovation works), the old school, whose construction dates back to 1870, undergone the works on its reconstruction and turned into a fully-fledged museum.
The cultural center officially opened its doors for visitors on April 5, 2015. Its goal is to preserve and increase the number of historic values under the conditions of a brisk growth of the modern world.
The Historical and Folklore Museum of Nikiti nowadays is a stone building, which has two floors. It belongs to the monuments of the Nikiti cultural heritage. The museum welcomes visitors who wish to have a touch at the history of the area. The museum collection contains over 1,500 artifacts, brought by the Nikiti residents. Among them, you can see the household items, old-fashioned clothes, documents, and coins. The museum keeps on expanding its collection.
The first things a visitor can see by the entry of the museum are the mannequins. They wear old clothes the Greeks usually put on for work and on holidays centuries ago.
After you enter the building, you find yourself in a light room, representing several spheres of life of the Nikiti residents. The room is divided into zones by special walls. At one of them, you can see the old green doors that were well-preserved until nowadays. The second area features an old wooden desk, serving for the needs of country children, learning to write in the past. The opposite side of the room houses religious artifacts – icons, crosses, etc. Just a few steps separate this place from the area with huge antique amphoras, the remains of the mattocks, and other tools for cultivating the farmland.
There are also a lot of black-and-white pictures with a brief description on the walls of the museums.
Now, this museum is not only the place where a visitor can have a touch to ancient times. It is a well-managed community, aiming to solve a range of social and cultural problems. The museum often holds various lectures, seminars, and masterclasses. In 2006, it joined the program “We are the Museums,” including the historians, culture experts, religious studies scholars, and other specialists from around the world. Their goal is to share their experience and know-how. In the framework of this program, the representatives of the museum in Bucharest showed the detailed concept of social development for the next few decades. Victoria Perivizou (Βικτώρια Περβίζου – the cultural policy adviser) brilliantly coped with the task. In her workshop, the woman develops new ways of establishing harmonious architectural space for the city (in other words – the ways of lighting the museums that contrast with the surrounding area).
The museum sits in the center of the village, near the church of Agios Nikitas.