There are images that at first seem graphic , almost innocent . A menu in a foreign language in a tavern in Chios . A coach with visitors in Alexandroupolis . A ferry connection returning to the Aegean . A few tourists who come, eat, shop, take pictures, leave money and leave. And then the usual unsuspecting person is quick to exclaim: where is the problem?
The problem begins precisely where naivety disguises itself as realism . Because in countries with loose borders, clean relations and mutual respect for sovereignty, tourism is a bridge . But in countries that live next to a power that systematically challenges their national sovereignty , tourism can also become a tool of soft infiltration . Not because every visitor is a suspect. But because the state behind, which drives the grand strategy , is neither innocent nor neutral nor a friend.
There are many examples on our islands: in Chios , in many tourism businesses, in restaurants, even in fish taverns, the menu is also written in Turkish . Not as a curiosity. Not as an isolated service. But as an indication that the Turkish presence on the island has gained volume , continuity and economic weight . And this, on an island in the eastern Aegean , is not a detail.
Chios , in recent years, has begun to rely more and more on visitors from Turkey . People of middle and upper income levels cross over, eat, shop, vacation, fill shops and hotels. The visa express arrangement, which facilitated these arrivals, was presented as a practical measure to stimulate the economies of the coast . And indeed, at the first level, that is what it does. It brings money to islands that need it.
Except that the economy never exists in a geopolitical vacuum . And especially in the Aegean , nothing is ever just about tourism. When a country like Turkey disputes islands , maritime zones , airspace , sovereign rights , when it teaches its new generations a revisionist view of History , when it promotes the doctrine of the “Blue Homeland” , then the massive and ever-increasing presence of Turkish visitors in sensitive areas cannot be dealt with with the carelessness of a cashier who only sees the day’s collection.
A few years ago, the movement was mainly the other way around. Greeks from Chios would cross over for a quick walk, some would combine the trip with a visit to martyred Smyrna , others would buy cheaper products or take an excursion. Today, the picture is changing. The rise in prices on the Turkish coast, the presence of wealthy Russian tourists there after the Ukrainian crisis, and the devaluation of the Turkish lira have made Greece cheaper and more attractive in the eyes of many Turks. And so the flows are reversing .
The same phenomenon is beginning to be seen in Lemnos , with the restoration of the ferry connection with the opposite side. Not so that the people of Lemnos visit Troy en masse, of course, but mainly to facilitate Turkish visitors who want to cross over, eat fish in Myrina , take a walk and look for traces of Ottoman memory … Do you understand?
A similar picture exists in Alexandroupolis . On weekends, the city is filled with coachloads of Turkish visitors. They shop, eat on the waterfront, visit shops, but they also do not miss out on places of Ottoman interest, such as the historic mosque, the tomb of Faik Hussein Pasha or the Ottoman baths of Traianoupolis . And again, someone will say: so what? Is it not good for tourists to come? They do not leave money? Do they not stimulate the local economy?
Yes, they stimulate it. But economic stimulation cannot be the only criterion of national policy . Because Thrace and the eastern Aegean are not tourist “plots” without historical weight. They are areas of enormous geopolitical importance , with open wounds, with constant pressures, with a state opposite that has not abandoned either its aspirations or its rhetoric or its mechanisms of influence .
Turkish visitors, as ordinary people, may come for vacation, for food, for shopping, for curiosity or for nostalgia. The problem is not the ordinary visitor. The problem is the context in which his presence is placed. Because behind society there is the Turkish state . And the Turkish state is not an ordinary neighbor. It is a state that directly challenges Greek rights , that considers the Aegean a space of “sharing” , that exploits minorities , migratory flows , historical monuments , religious references and economic dependencies .
This is exactly what Athens does not want to see. Or it pretends not to see. Just as it does not want to see that mass population movements , even when temporary, are not always innocent. Especially when they are accompanied by gradual real estate purchases , direct or indirect settlement, creation of networks , business presence, local dependencies and cultural visibility . History has shown that presence often precedes claim. And claim follows presence.
We are not talking about French people buying houses in the Cyclades. We are not talking about German retirees settling in Crete. We are not even talking about the Russians of Limassol, who, no matter how large their presence became, did not have a state behind them that challenged Cypriot sovereignty in Limassol. We are talking about citizens of a country with which Greece has not settled its accounts . And this changes everything.
Turkey is not a distant neutral market. It is the country that maintains the casus belli . It is the country that projects the narrative of the Blue Homeland . It is the country that questions the influence of the Greek islands . It is the country that has repeatedly instrumentalized the migration issue . It is the country that maintains strategic pressure on the Aegean , Cyprus and Thrace . And when such a country acquires an increasingly dense economic, social and cultural presence in sensitive Greek areas, the Greek state cannot be limited to the smile of the tour operator .
The most worrying thing is not that Turkish tourists are coming. The most worrying thing is that Greece is facing the phenomenon without strategic thinking . Without limits . Without filters . Without a sense of what the economic dependence of remote areas on visitors from a state that considers them historically, culturally or geopolitically questionable may mean, in the long term. If tomorrow a local economy learns to breathe from Turkish demand , then who will have the first say when Ankara starts to exert pressure? The national strategy or the fear of losing tourist revenues?
This is the trap . At first everything appears practical, commercial and innocent. A menu in Turkish. A ferry connection. A tourist visa. A coach. A monument. A property. A business. A broker. A local economy that gets used to it. And then, when the phenomenon acquires depth, networks and permanence, some will tell us that “we are simply accepting a reality that already exists” . But this is how faits accomplis are created. Not always with troops. Sometimes with money , tourism , property , networks and habit .
Greece already has serious problems controlling migration flows , serious problems of social cohesion , serious problems of demographic weakness and serious problems of state surveillance of sensitive areas. It does not need to add to these an uncritical, uncontrolled, economically dependent Turkish presence on islands and regions that are at the center of the Turkish revisionist imagination .
And let’s not kid ourselves: Ankara knows very well how to exploit such situations. It knows how to turn “cultural interest” into a diplomatic argument. It knows how to dress historical memory with geopolitical claims . It knows how to present presence as a right and right as a reason for intervention. It has done it elsewhere. It has tried it many times. And it would be criminally naive to believe that it is not watching it here too.
So the issue is not for Greece to close its doors. Nor to be afraid of every visitor. Nor to turn tourism into suspicion. The issue is to stop behaving like a country that has no borders , no history , no threats and no opposing strategy towards it. Hospitality is one thing. Naivety is another. Economic extroversion is another. Geopolitical blindness is another.
And here lies the great responsibility of the Greek state . To strengthen the marginal economies, but not in a way that makes them dependent on a country that questions them. To facilitate tourism, but not without control mechanisms . To protect the real estate market in sensitive areas . To monitor the creation of networks. To not let local interests turn into national vulnerability . To not substitute politics for collection.
Because frontiers are not just economies. They are borders . They are memory . They are sovereignty . They are spaces where presence, property, language, commerce, daily movement, and historical narrative take on a weight far greater than the sum of the receipts at the tills.
And we must finally understand this before we wake up one morning and find that where we saw only tourists, nuclei of influence had been created. Where we saw only menus in Turkish, a new normality had been formed. Where we saw only coaches and fish taverns, a network of presence , memory , ownership and pressure had been set up. Ready to be exploited when and as needed.
Greece should not be afraid of tourism. But it should be afraid of its naivety . Because Ankara does not act naively. It acts with a plan . And you do not respond to a plan with smiles, express visas and menus in a foreign language. You respond with a serious state , a national strategy and a clear awareness that nothing is ever completely innocent at the borders.
MAXIMOS TH. KYPRIANOU
