forests purchased from the monasteries continue to benefit the community as a whole. The most famous person from the Agrafa and the driving force behind modernization was the colonel Nikolaos Plastiras, who was elected prime minister of Greece after the Civil War. It was his vision to create a hydroelectric dam in the region so that nearly all of mainland Greece, excluding the Peloponnese, would be supplied with electricity, particularly the many fractured villages and rural communities. A spin-off from this project was the mass irrigation system developed to supply the farmers in the plains of Thessaly with water and increase the yields of cash crops such as cotton, and also the creation of Lake Plastira which has met increasing tourist development in the last decades. Construction began during the 1950s. The Plastiras Dam contributed to the economic development of Greece. The majority of the workers on this project were Agrafiotes themselves. The residents of the region enjoy free water up until this day. Notes References Alexakis, Christoforos . Literacy at the Agrafa Region during the Turkish Occupation. Athens, 2001. External links Plastiras Lake