Kapetan Hapsa Monument

The battle of Vassiliki and the holocaust of the village, in June 1821, completed the first important revolutionary action in Northern Greece during the period of the Greek Revolution of '21.

About a month earlier, a military corps led by Stamos Hapsas had been formed in Halkidiki, to participate in the liberation struggle. Hapsas, born in Pazarakia (today's Kriopigi) in Halkidiki, a resident of Sykia, gathered 2,000 men and proceeded to occupy Thessaloniki, liberating the villages along the way. The battle that took place at the height of Vassiliki, near the Monastery of Agia Anastasia, marked the death of "Kapetan Hapsa" and the last men who had stayed by his side. A monument was erected in their honor on the battlefield.

The installation is the work of the sculptor Georgios Tsiaras and was erected in 1997. It was characterized by experts as a unique and elaborate work, both for the size and for the brass representation that accompanied the statue of Hapsa, with images of the battle. The brass representations were detached from the monument in 2019 and the area is the statue of Hapsa, in a battle position, while in the same area there is the ossuary of Cretan men who lost their lives in a later battle at the same place in 1905.