Throughout the Cold War, a 15-45km wide strip of territory parallel to Greece’s northern land boundaries was a “surveillance zone”. This special exclusion area had been kept by the Greek Army after WW2 to prevent a potential attack from the Soviet Bloc against Greece, which was the only country in Eastern Europe to belong to the NATO. As such, the Soviet Bloc saw Greece as a threat to the Southernmost borders of the Warsaw Pact. Because of this, the area was highly militarized.
After 1991 and the fall of the Communist bloc, the military infrastructures in the area were progressively abandoned. Today, the area lives normally but still hosts a number of old military camps, buildings, artifacts, fences, watching towers and devoided Army warehouses – the visible remnants of an era when this area was, as the Southernmost part of the Iron Curtain, inexpugnable.
