Agios Konstantinos
Agios Konstantinos is a village in the prefecture of Rethymno, located approximately 22 km southwest of the city of Rethymno, near Zouridi, shortly before Roustika.
Built on a wide plateau at an altitude of 250 meters and stretched upon a magnificent location, verdant in olive trees, vineyards, carobs, cypresses and other forest trees, Agios Konstantinos has been here since ancient times. During the Byzantine period and after the distribution of Cretan lands in 1182 by the Emperor Alexios II Komninos among the 12 princes, Agios Konstantinos was given to the family of Hortatsis. During the Venetian rule, it was used as a leisure resort or as permanent residence of many nobles of that time and it has been a fief of the Barozzi family.
Agios Konstantinos was named after a church built in 1315 and restored later. The village was first noted in the work of Cornelius, the Creta Sacra, while in 1415 it was mentioned that there were a feast and palaestra and bow competitions held. During the Turkish occupation, the village was inhabited by Greeks and was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Committee, which was later transferred to the village of Margarites, where it was dissolved after all. During the German occupation, the inhabitants were forced to build barracks with their home materials and with what was left of the villa Barozzi. The barracks still remain today and there are efforts to salvage them as modern history monument.
In Agios Konstantinos there are also preserved many buildings that testify the Venetian presence in the area, such as Venetian fountain of Barozzi, the ruins of the Venetian mint, as well as the ruins of a Byzantine monastery and a mansion. Other remarkable monuments that exist in the area between the villages of Agios Konstantinos and Agios Georgios are the ruins of the old village Artos. It is believed that it had existed during the Venetian rule and was destroyed by the Turks.
The approximately 200 residents of Agios Konstantinos are engaged in cultivating olives and carobs and in livestock products. There are also restaurants, cafes, mini-markets, a butcher shop, a bakery and production units of furniture, carpentry, stockbreeding and traditional sausages in the area.
The settlement of Agios Georgios belongs to a wider area of Agios Konstantinos, which is a very beautiful village with the great church of the Holy Spirit, now renovated.
Since 2014, the race named Nikiforeios Road, passing through the village, has been conducted in honor of Nikiforos Fokas.
