Ιn the mountain village of Filoti, 19 km from Chora, apart from the cool square with the picturesque cafes and the legendary Platanos (plane tree), the beautiful parish church of "Panagia Filotissa”, the Venetian Tower, the cobbled alleys, and the beautiful traditional houses with gates and flowers, what will surely fascinate the visitor is the Old Commercial Neighbourhood of Fassolas, where the shops have been recently restored with a lot of passion, love and intense interest in the preservation of the image and the tradition of the place. Before the construction of the main road Chora - Apiranthos, the neighbourhood of Fassolas was the centre of commerce, crafts and social events of Filoti. In the neighbourhood there were small business premises, such as grocery stores, cloth and dowry shops, bakery, tailor shop, shoemaker's shop, blacksmith shop, carpentry shop, olive mills, «raki» distillery, cafes, etc. Fassolas's "neighbourhood of craftsmen and traders" gives a very good picture of how the economy of an island village was organized and operated during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, but also how the workplace was built on a human dimension. It is fortunate that most of the old shops were left almost intact and today they have been restored and a wonderful space has been created that refers directly to the 19th century. Fassolas's neighbourhood was named after a neighbourhood in the Plain of Chios island, from where a young refugee named Antonis Pagidas sailed to Filoti. The story of the young refugee Antonis is a good example of a side effect created by the interaction of great historical events with the fates of ordinary people who experience their consequences. The young refugee arrived in Naxos in 1822 at the age of fourteen as a refugee, after the great destruction of his long-suffering island. Today all stores contain a complete sample of the products they used to manufacture and are equipped with their old tools. Under the small plane tree, in the small square of Fassolas, the visitors can enjoy their coffee, but also the traditional sweets of the spoon and baklava. On the main road, shortly after the end of Fassolas's Street, the "Numismatic Collection of Nikolas Moustakis” is located, where there are displays of all the coins that circulated in Greece and Cyprus from 1820 until the circulation of the euro. In the showcases of the "Collection" one can see coins and banknotes issued in the new Greek state, in the Ionian Islands and in Epirus-Thessaly (before their integration), in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace during the Bulgarian occupation (as well as the bonds given to the holders of drachma for its withdrawal), and banknotes issued by the Italians, as well as by “the government of the mountain” in the areas it ruled during the Occupation. Also on display are Turkish coins circulating mainly in Greece, Crete and Cyprus (the latter and the British Commonwealth coins). Finally, there are the cut banknotes of the 1922 internal borrowing, as well as the bonds that were given to replace the cut-off part. In Filoti the visitor can experience a journey through time, from the time of the Venetians to the middle of the last century. In fact, if you walk in the alleys of Fassolas, you will have the opportunity to hear the forgotten sounds from the ironworks anvil, the carpentry ribbon and the sewing machine.
