A whole year has passed from day 1 when we took those first steps together on the internet with our site parparia.com! 

“Every beginning is difficult”, as the saying goes. And even more difficult when one is not and expert or a professional, yet tries through limited knowledge to give the best result or outcome. 

We the team, are the last to judge our performance. Statistics indicate that so far we have over 2,650 unique visitors from all parts of the earth and over 20,000 visits. That’s not bad for only one year especially for a site that caters mostly to villagers and friends. In order to make our product better, we ask from you the members and friends for your constructive criticisms, your opinions, error noting, pointing out inaccuracies, bugs and suggestions for things that are missing that could be added or improved. 

To give you an account of our some of our postings, we could say that we attempted to follow the calendar year depending on the season, with themes of village life from past and present, to include festivals, fairs and Carnival celebration.  Also discussed were basics themes regarding the village such as to when and how certain things were done such as how they got water, the wheat harvest, etc.  In addition, articles on how certain things came to be, such as, the building of new roads and churches. Also discussed was village folklore from the 19th and 20th centuries. The website Headlines had direct contact with the village where we were informed directly about current events and the latest happenings. There were pages with notifications of engagements, weddings, births, baptisms etc.. We also had historical pages of interest medieval maps and other publications about the Parparia village. 

Folklore is the most important piece that we will highlight in the upcoming year. We will describe the lives of our ancestors who were able to tame a wilderness and learn to survive in in an unforgiving and harsh environment with no doctors, no cars and none of the comforts of modern day life. The folklore section will be from the people themselves who lived and witnessed life in the village. 

We will also ask for the continuing participation and assistance of all members and villagers by sending old black and white photos especially with the names and dates for the creation of a photo album. We have gathered many photos but more are welcome from our villagers-members. Old photos not only help identify the way of life in the past but also help piece together how a village may have looked or was constructed. 

Separate sections will be created with different themes.

A section on documents such as old contracts, dowries, wills, testaments, land deeds, etc. will go into a new section of old documents will be created. 

Member will be able publish a story to tell their own story or talk about their family from the old days or to just discuss contemporary issues relating the village nicely and without personal opinions, or insults. 

There is the idea of creating family trees of the various families or “clans”. This ambitious “tree” project can only be made possible with your assistance and knowledge. 

We plan to have pages on musical traditions, singing, dancing, traditional dress, traditional knits and folk customs like marriage proposals, weddings and baptisms. 

There will also be a page for ways of land cultivation, tree grafting , farming then and now, etc.  

This summer there was a first attempt to plot the names of the various regions and fields of Parparia, exposing the area’s historical significance throughout various time periods, especially medieval and Byzantine. Next summer with the assistance knowledgeable villagers presently living or having lived or worked for many years in those fields and areas, the idea of identifying and plotting these areas will become reality.  

Generally speaking,, these are our some of our next plans. We would like for you the members to actively participate in the site and offer your own viewpoints . We intend to further highlight the folklore, traditions, customs, traditions and history for the good of the village and we thank you all. We invite everyone to contribute about what they know about our site and we are at your disposal for any clarifications.