In Koukouli Zagori, it is worth visiting the "K. Lazaridis" Cultural Center Museum which operates there. In this Museum, which is housed in the house where the teacher, historian, folklorist and herb collector Kostas Lazaridis lived, a unique collection of herbs, which thrive in the rocks and gorges of Vikos, is exhibited.
Kostas Lazaridis was born in Koukouli in 1904 and died in 1987. He served 23 years as a teacher in his village and in other areas. He studied history, folklore and botany. He has personally collected and recorded about 1,300 different species of herbs from the surrounding area and the Vikos ravine, which he has classified by families, with their Latin names, while he has also recorded information about the place and the date that were found.
In the museum, in addition to the unique and valuable collection of herbs, there is a library with many old books, newspapers, magazines and photographs, items from the period when K. Lazaridis served as a teacher, many of his personal items as well as the "herbal collector ", with which he carried the herbs he found, so that they would not be destroyed. Many of these herbs were used in the past by various practicing doctors of the region, the so-called "Vico doctors", to make the therapeutic preparations they gave to patients.
Editor: Fotini Anastasopoulou