"Forbidden Zones: Greek and "Slavophone"

Nicholas Gage is a Greek author whose memoir of his mother, Eleni, was made into a movie by Nick Vanoff, a Macedonian- American TV and movie producer. Our friend Niko, was a New York Times reporter, stationed in Athens, but has never, to my knowledge, written about the treatment of ethnic Macedonians in Greece.

What really interested me was the comment that his home town was in a 'forbidden zone'' - so close to Albania that a special pass was needed to enter". I had always assumed that these zones were exclusive to those areas inhabited by ethnic Macedonians as a way of controlling an "untrustworthy slavophone population". Now I know better. However, my paranoia is not totally removed since the "forbidden zones" in Kastoria (Kostur) Florina (Lerin) and Edessa (Voden) are pr0bably much larger than those that inhabitted by mainly Greeks. Anyone having information about these zones, please share!

Nicholas Gage Returns to His Home Town
New York Times: "

I went back to Lia 14 years later and have gone nearly every year since, although until 1974, Lia was still in a ''forbidden zone'' - so close to Albania that a special pass was needed to enter. Almost half of the Epirus that Byron visited is still inaccessible because it fell inside Albania when the boundary with Greece was arbitrarily set by a commission in 1923. The current rulers of Albania won't let anyone in or out."