First place for Santo’s chimney

The Serenade for a Chimney performed at the Santo Factory in Monolithos won the first place in the #Ode2Joy Challenge, a social media initiative celebrating Europe’s cultural heritage, held in May. In the context of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, 2018, May was dedicated to the protection of historical industrial chimneys, landmarks of their areas, in cities or the countryside.

According to the Challenge, the participants were asked to be inspired by Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the EU’s official anthem, and present a creative and imaginative interpretation or expression of it in front of or near a typical industrial chimney. There have been 14 participations from seven European countries. Greece participated with five videos, all of which were created at the initiative of the Santorini Arts Factory in five typical chimneys of the island: the D. Nomikos” Tomato Factory in Monolithos, the Tomato Industrial Museum “D. Nomikos” in Vlychada, the S. Prekas Tomato Factory in Vlychada, the Kanakaris Tomato Factory in Exo Gialos, Fira and the Santo Factory in Monolithos.

After the online voting, the Santo Factory video was declared the winner of the Challenge with 949 out of 1876 total votes (51%). The Ode to Joy was performed by the cantor of Byzantine music and chief oenologist of SantoWines, Mr. Nikos Varvarigos.

Watch the relevant video below:

“Santo” the tomato process factory
In 1952 the Union of Santorini Cooperatives built the tomato processing factory “SANTO” in the area of Monolithos Village, which presently is the only one that operates in the island.

Its beautiful architecture is still preserved after the restoration and renovation that was implemented in 2015, utilizing funding from the European Union. SANTO continues to produce high quality gourmet products from Santorini Tomato PDO. In the same building there is a separate division for the process and packaging of Santorini Fava PDO, capers, caper leaves and other products.