There is a small island west of Kastellorizo that you can see from the harbour on a clear morning. It is called Ro — a narrow strip of rock between Kastellorizo and the Turkish coast, known today for one woman who refused to leave it behind.
Her name was Despoina Achladioti. Greeks still call her Κυρά της Ρω — the Lady of Ro.
The woman who stayed
Despoina was born in Kastellorizo in 1890, into a family connected to the nearby islands for generations. In 1927, she moved permanently to Ro with her husband, choosing a life far from the larger islands of the Dodecanese.
The years that followed were difficult. The eastern Mediterranean shifted through war, occupation, and uncertainty. Smaller islands slowly emptied as families left in search of stability elsewhere.
She stayed.
After the death of her husband, Despoina brought her elderly mother to the island and continued living there through the years of the Second World War and beyond. When her mother also passed away, she remained entirely alone on Ro for decades, living with little more than a small house, a few animals, and the routines that shaped her days.
Among those routines was one act that would make her known across Greece.
The flag of Ro
Every morning, she raised the Greek flag.
Every evening, she lowered it again.
She continued through winter winds, summer heat, and years when almost nobody visited the island at all. What mattered to her was simple: Ro was Greek soil, and the flag would continue to fly above it.
Over time, that quiet routine became a symbol of endurance and presence on the eastern edge of Greece.
By the late 1970s, her story had spread across the country. Journalists, naval officers, and visitors began making the crossing to meet her. She received state honours, but according to those who met her, very little changed in the way she lived.
When failing health finally forced her to leave the island in early 1982, the Greek military maintained the Greek presence and raising of the flag — a tradition that continues today.
Despoina Achladioti died later that same year (13 May 1982) at the age of ninety-two. She was buried on Ro, the island she had spent most of her life protecting through presence alone.
Visiting Ro today
Ro is not famous for beach bars or crowded anchorages. People visit because of the story, the silence, and the feeling of standing on one of the easternmost inhabited points of Greece.
The crossing from Kastellorizo reveals steep coastline, clear water, and the isolated landscape that shaped the Lady of Ro's life for over half a century. Near the small harbour, visitors can still see traces of the island's past and the chapel where the flag continues to rise each morning.
Some places are remembered because history happened there. Ro is remembered because someone stayed.
