Kato Kleines


Kato Kleines is a village and a former municipality in Florina regional unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Florina, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 188.564 km2. It is 7 km north of the city of Florina. The population was 2,735 in 2011.

History

The village was first mentioned in an Ottoman defter of 1468, where it is listed under the name of Kleshtino and described as having ninety-seven households. In 1481, the village possessed two hundred and thirteen households, a church, mills, and a kiln. The Turkish documents suggest a prosperous place, noting the production of vines, walnuts, onions, garlic, cabbage, peas, flax, honey, pigs, and silkworms.
In 1845 the Russian slavist Victor Grigorovich recorded Kleshtina as mainly Bulgarian village. Johann Georg von Hahn in his map from 1861 marked the village as Bulgarian, too. Besides Slav-speaking population there were 150 Albanians in Kato Kleines in the end of 19th century. According to the statistics of Geographers Dimitri Mishev and D. M. Brancoff, the village had a total Christian population of 504 in 1905, all Patriarchist Bulgarians. It also had 1 Greek school.
After Greco-Turkish War and Population exchange between Greece and Turkey a number of Pontic Greeks were settled in the village of Kato Kleines and in some other villages in the municipality - Kato Kalliniki, Polyplatano, Mesokampos and in the new-founded Neos Kafkasos.