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| Evzonoi Stratiotes |
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| The 'Evzonoi' (or tsoliades in everyday Greek) are members of a special regiment of the Greek army that only accept men with a height of 1.80 m or more. They stand guard at the monument of the 'unknown' soldier in front of the Greek parliament, and at the presidential house -the former royal palace- across their own base next to The National Gardens. The change of the guard which take place every two hours follows a fixed ceremony. The heavy uniform of the evzonoi -the wooden hand made shoes alone weigh around 3kgs -is based on the outfits of the Greek rebels (kleftes and armatoloi) during the revolutionary war against Turkey,called tsamika. The main part of it is the foustanella a white kilt with 400 pleats symbolizing the 400 years of Turkish occupation while the red fez stands for the blood shed for the liberation. |
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