Why Don’t the Locals Swim in the Lake?: Leisure, Ecology, Social Trust and Cultural Propensities in Greek Makedonia

During April through August of 2023, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Edessa (Greek Makedonia), focused on the local leisure practices and their meanings. While driving up mount Kaimaktsalan, I “discovered” a huge lake that none of my interlocutors mentioned, which turned out to be lake Vegoritida (locally named Lake Arnissa). I was excited about the lake and the promises of leisure it involved, for both research and fun, and contacted the founder of the lake’s nautical club, who recounted the activities of swimming, yachting, wind surfing, supping and even a sailing school. It quickly turned out, however, that my family as well as my mostly Israeli guests, along with the founder and a couple of friends, made for the bulk of the lake enthusiasts. “Why don’t the locals swim in the lake?”, I kept asking my local friends, in Arnissa, Edessa and other regions of Greece. The answers can be grouped into three common arguments: “Its dirty”, “Its dangerous”, and “we don’t swim in lakes and rivers”. In this paper I elaborate on each of these explanations, contextualizing them in the lake’s recent history, government-citizen’s relations (and the lack of trust they involve), as well as perceptions of safety and danger. However, since I was told time and again how “the beach is only one hour away” (driving time based on extreme wishful thinking), I tried to understand why a busy and expensive beach, two or three hours away at best, would be preferred over a deserted beach some 20 minutes up the road. My interlocutors suggested that pollution and danger notwithstanding, cultural dispositions and preferences are important factors for shunning the lake. Leisure practices are therefore presented in this article as deeply embedded in historical, political and cultural propensities.