Rachtades
Rachtades is built on a cliff in the north-western side of the island from which the village probably got its name because Rachtades means a «high nest». More than half of the inhabitants of Rachtades are Armenian descendants and most of them have the surname Armenis. According to testimonies, the first settlers of this village come from the adjacent village of Armenades where, the Armenians found refuge after they were driven away from their land during the 16th century. As tradition claims, the Armenians of Corfu set a condition to the girls who married foreigners, to entail to their children as a second surname, the name Armenis. This is the case concerning the eminent Corfiots, Ioannis Vrailas Armenis, who is a doctor and a writer and his brother Petros Vrailas Armenis, a philosopher and a politician of the 19th century.
Rachtades possesses a brand new church dedicated to Agia Varvara on whose name-day, a big festival is organized in the village. There are no coffee shops today in Rachtades, even though it has quite a few residents. The old elementary school has been turned into a cultural center of the church and in the village there is also a monument dedicated to the Unknown Soldier.
The inhabitants of Rachtades are occupied with viticulture, the cultivation of olives and with the raising of cattle.
