Travelling in Pontus. Tourism of nostalgia

The journeys of the Greeks of Pontus to their historical homeland are characterized as pilgrimages, with a strong element of nostalgia, as a trigger and main experience. It is a symbolic ‘return’ to the ancestral land, a journey with a strong memorial dimension and emotional weight, the component of many types of tourism, which are summarised in ‘nostalgia tourism’. The traveller seeks “answers” from Pontus, trying to integrate his individual identity in the place, to fill the gaps of family narratives and to create new, synthetic experiences. The historical homeland is materialized and the vague image is concretized. The encounter with local people who speak the Pontian dialect shifts the traveller’s interest from the monumental culture to the inhabitants of Pontus, revealing a new, common Pontian identity. The universal wish is that hostility will disappear and there will be a true rapprochement.