Despina Achladioti, known as the Lady of Ro, was a Greek woman born in 1890 on Kastellorizo. In the 1920s, she moved to the tiny, remote islet of Ro, near the Turkish coast, with her husband and later her blind mother.
After her husband died in 1940 and her mother passed away, she lived alone on Ro, a rocky outcrop in the Dodecanese, which was under Italian control until 1947.
For over 40 years, from the early 1920s until she died in 1982, Achladioti raised the Greek flag every morning and lowered it at sunset, regardless of weather or political tensions. This act began as a personal statement of defiance, especially after she removed a Turkish flag from the island in 1927, sewing her Greek flag from a white sheet and blue cloth. Her daily ritual continued through World War II, when Kastellorizo was bombed and evacuated, and during Greek-Turkish friction in the 1970s, when her flag was visible from Turkey, just a short distance away.
Her persistence made her a symbol of Greek pride and resistance. In 1975, after she again replaced a Turkish flag with the Greek one, her story gained national attention. She was honored by the Greek Navy, the Academy of Athens, and other institutions. Achladioti died at 92 in Rhodes hospital and was buried on Ro, beneath the flagpole, with full military honors—a rare tribute for a civilian. Today, Greek soldiers stationed on Ro continue their tradition of raising the flag daily.
Her life, marked by solitude and unwavering commitment, has been celebrated in Greece through media, a theatrical play, and comparisons to figures like Joan of Arc. She once said she endured hardships because her love for Greece sustained her, feeling the nation’s presence most strongly on that isolated islet.
“I was alone in 1943 in Kastellorizo with my blind mother, when all the inhabitants of the island left for the Middle East and Cyprus. With the Greek flag raised and love for Greece deeply rooted in me, I passed all hardships,” said Kyra tis Ro before she passed away.
The History Behind the Greek Flag
