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People and
Lifestyle
 Often living on arid lands yielding small quantities of agricultural goods,
with only the large Dodecanese islands able to support self sustained
economies, the Dodecaneseans have early relied to the sea as a source of
income. Kassians have a long tradition in marine trading, while sponge
fishing, was the traditional occupation of men in the islands of Kalymnos,
Symi and Kos, as well as to a smaller extent to all other islands. The
occupation of sponge fishermen became gradually defunct and their families
were well in the process of migrating until tourism growth in the 80s
convinced them to move back in. But life on the Dodecanesean Archipelago has
still many faces. In highland villages in the interior of Rhodes and Kos,
tradition and age-old customs are still alive, almost untouched by the
cosmopolitan life of the seaside resorts. Traditional lifestyle is even more
evident in smaller islands like Patmos where customs and popular believes
related to religion are handed down from generation to generation. Probably
tradition upkeep is at its zenith in Olympus area in the island of Karpathos,
where time seems to have stopped. There the women in the villages gaze
haughtily at the cameras of tourist that convey their traditional, colourful
attire to the rest of the world.
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