Diminakis Kostas

Place of birth: Kalliopi, Lemnos

Date of birth: 1933

Character: Kostas Diminakis played the clarinet professionally, from 1955 to 1975.

Parents: His father was a farmer and rancher.

Marital Status: Married with two daughters.

Other side or main occupation: Because the professional engagement with music was not sufficient to cover his livelihood needs, Kostas Diminakis engaged in cotton farming, from 1955 onwards:

[…] well, when I was young, I had also been involved in cotton cultivation […]. These must have started, I came in ’55, they started in ’54, ’53, that’s when they started. In ’55, ’56, ’57, they started en masse […]. Up until then everything was done by hand, but we had nice quality long fiber babaki here and it was in demand. But then people left abroad, Athens, Australia, they slowly abandoned them, it didn’t go out that much, tiring […]. It wasn’t about the [cotton] disease, it was that he had cotton up, down in the Peloponnese […]. All mechanized farming is there, he goes with a tractor, plows it, sows it with the seeder, digs it, pours medicine and no grass comes out, he digs it again with the tractor a little, then with rockets, they water it, he leaves it free, let’s call it a pond, free the water, then he goes and collects it with the combine [harvester] and does not put his hand at all. But we started from the beginning with the oxen to plow it, put it by hand like this, carve it by hand, make the furrows by hand, water it, give it five or six waters, waters not does Lemnos have many, few waters, martyrdom tyranny to a great extent […]. I was renting fields. Unfortunately I was renting, the rents are expensive […]. Most of the fields were couples, the ’han […] Egyptians [ie Limnios who had immigrated to Egypt].

When he stopped playing the clarinet professionally, from 1975 onwards, Kostas Diminakis devoted himself to agricultural work, mainly to beekeeping, but also to olive cultivation: We did everything with a delay, we said olives are not grown here in Lemnos, this was the concept we had, even though Homer mentions that the island was covered with olive trees 2,500 years ago. We believed, in my days, that olives are not grown in Lemnos, but olives are grown in Lemnos and now an olive press will be built. My brother and I planted olives together, he in Mytilini, I here, mine yielded more, earlier and more. It was ignorance that did these things to us, not to plant trees. Now, unfortunately, things have gotten worse because the world is gone, there are no youth left, no young people left, what olive trees to plant, what trees to plant since it has no one. No young person lives in the village, no weddings take place, no baptisms, only funerals take place…

Routes in space and time:

After the Second World War and the civil war, the economic and social restructuring that had a direct impact on the agricultural structure of the Lemnos economy, led many young people to immigrate, either to Greece or abroad. Thus also Kostas Diminakis, at the age of 16, in 1949, went to the Kavala region near an uncle of his who had already immigrated there:

Well, yes, I worked twelve hours a day […]. Other villagers were also working. People were leaving […] when it was Ottoman they went over there to Asia Minor, then when Asia Minor was closed, they went to Macedonia, when the refugees came in ’22 they went to Macedonia to smoke, build some roads, then the forts of Metaxas, in Rupel, what was it called over there […]. Everyone immigrated from Lemnos because the island was poor, all young and then they returned […]. Yes, young people, fifteen, fourteen and eighteen years old, left to go to Asia Minor, the same thing happened over here too […]. But there were also older ones, some who didn’t have estates went to Asia Minor, they went to Macedonia, sometimes they worked in the summer on roads, smoking mostly, and they came back and spent their winter in Lemnos. Poor place […]. I had an uncle in the bakhtse I went to and my uncle took me and put me […]. We lived in the baxes, he had houses, deserted houses, he makes. Well, we worked in the orchards, that is, in the garden, tomatoes, cucumbers, according to the season, then it was tomatoes and cucumbers. The whole year, that’s where we lived…

Kostas Diminakis stayed in Kavala for a total of two years. In 1950, with the recommendations of the Chief Musician of the Municipality Band, he managed to secure a position in the garbage collection, as an employee of the Municipality of Kavala. This work was less laborious and more profitable than working in the pits. In 1960-61, immediately after his marriage, he immigrated to Mykonos to work in the mines:

You couldn’t survive as a pure musician, because he didn’t have much work, a wedding, a festival. Well, sometimes there was a group of two – three people, four – five – ten, they liked to play music, they told you to come over here and play. I also did this in Mykonos […]. It must have been 1960-1961. In 1960 I just got married, I took my wife and took her there.

Mykonos is a rock, a curse that is, there cannot be a more cursed island, my fate threw me after I got married, I had nothing, I went to Mykonos to the mines, there are mines over there, but I also took the instrument with me, I took the clarinet because I also played the accordion, after the clarinet an accordion was needed and I got an accordion and I also got a clarinet […]. Well, work in the mines, back then there were no such things, tape recorders, or anything, and they would call us and play in the coffee shop every weekend night […]. In 1968-69, Kostas Diminakis immigrated for two years to Germany: I went to Germany for two years. I went to Germany over there to get a car, but then it wasn’t easy […]. The ones that are four movements, they pull, because I wanted to, tractor-type, we have it over here, a car is for transporting the bees from one place to another and I went for a couple of years. I went to the junta in 1968, 1969. I worked in bricks, in stones. In a factory, they were making bricks, fire bricks.

Personal and family course:

In 1951, he volunteered as a musician for the Air Force to serve his military service: Well, I saw that I had to join the army, I say go volunteer, go to music. I say go to the Conservatory too, go to the Conservatory too […]. Which music should I go to? At that time, the air force, EBA, was called the Hellenic Royal Air Force. I say I’ll go there – they asked for volunteers – I declare that I’m a musician, indeed, I’m leaving the Municipality, I’m going to basic training, they’re taking us out to go straight to music […]. In Araxos, in Araxos was the basic education. I went to Paleo Faliro, in the Hippodrome, it was right next to it, the musicians were all around the corner of the Hippodrome, near the sea then […]. We went over there, they kept me because I knew music, then there were no musicians, through the Civil War, through the Occupation, who will go as a musician? And immediately they kept me. I just went, I say directly Conservatory in the same year. Anyone who wanted could go to the Conservatory for free because we were soldiers. Well, I went there about three years ago. At the Athens Conservatory, about three years, I wanted one more year to become chief musician, but when I got fired, there was no work then, it was not like today, I looked for a job to continue being chief musician, I wanted one year, poor thing, I couldn’t , I was forced and left and came to Lemnos….