Kourtsouna

The Kourtsouna tower is the remnant of a fortified house on a hill southeast of Agios Dimitrios and Agios Nikolaos in Western Mani, about a kilometre from Platsa. It belonged to Nikolakis Christeas, also known as Koutifaris, a Maniot chieftain born in 1768. He was the son of captain Panagos and brother of Christodoulos Christeas, a notorious pirate and lord of the Zygos region around Kardamili, who commanded some thousand families. After Christodoulos was murdered with his wife and children by the nephews of captain Panagiotis Troupakis, Nikolakis took over the captaincy, evidently before 1815, as a French merchant's memorandum in Dutch archives records. Initiated into the Philiki Etairia in 1818, he served as a chiliarchos during the 1821 revolution and later became a general, dying in 1829.

The square tower, about 5.5 metres per side, probably dates from the early 19th century when Nikolakis ruled. It stands at its original height, though only two walls and part of the roof survive, the latter a four-gable addition from around 1900. It formed the corner of a 190-square-metre complex enclosed by a 55-metre perimeter wall, now mostly destroyed.