Venice is often described as a city frozen in time. Centuries-old palazzos are reflected in the echoey, narrow canals. Water, not roads, sets the rhythm of daily life.
It is also a very touristy city. Most of the more than 25 million people who visit this historic Italian city are daytrippers, spending just a few hours in Piazza San Marco after disembarking, taking pictures and planning a gondola ride.
But a few canals away from the square, the place is quieter. Women rowers dip their wooden oars in the blue water, directing a batèla a coa de gambero – a long “shrimp-tail” boat that went through the laundry is tied between the windows.
Unlike the gondola, which evolved into a symbol of beauty and royal transportation, the batela was the master of the port city: stable, spacious, built to carry goods and people through its shallow canals.
“The bottom of the boat is flat, it has no keel, because the average depth of the canal is only one meter,” said Elena Almansi, standing motionless at the back.
Almansi, 34, was born and raised in Venice. The daughter of two Venetian rowing champions, she learned to row from her mother at an early age. Today he is a decorated competitor, a third-place winner in the city’s prestigious Regata Storica and a national champion in rowing.
She is also part of Row Venice, a non-profit organization of women rowers dedicated to preserving the Venetian style of rowing. Founded nearly twenty years ago, it now counts about a dozen members among its ranks, offering lessons to tourists and local women who want to run.
Most are competitive regatantiwhile others paddle the tutorials – for love. All are trained voga alla venetathe traditional Venetian method used by gondoliers, too.
In this style, rowers stand facing forward, holding a single oar placed on a curved wooden handle called an oar. the forcola. With a smooth figure of eight movement, they move and direct at the same time.
It looks useless. It is not.
“Turn it, put it, straighten it, put it in, repeat…” instructs Beatrice Santoro, 51, a Venetian transplant from Rome. He joined the group 15 years ago after he broke his leg, saying that rowing helped him regain his strength.
“We come from different places, according to age and different needs,” he said. “We try to help each other and are very connected to the culture.”
For centuries, knowledge of harbor currents and rowing techniques has been quietly passed down between families. Even today, rowing culture in Venice – long dominated by male gondoliers and rowers – can feel closed and protected.
“The people here are very happy to teach other people to row,” said Almansi. “It’s something like a secret. The old masters say you have to steal with your eyes – look at me and try to understand why I’m so good.”
When Row Venice started, Almansi said female rowers were being abused in the canals.
“The old men of Venice were shouting at us, ‘What are you doing? Go home! My boat is tied up over there and you are destroying it.’ I’d say, ‘I’ve never touched your boat,'” Almansi recalled. “We were doing something that men couldn’t do: we were teaching people how to row properly.”
The movement flourished and now operates several rare batela replicas, helping to revive the small wooden crafts that had largely disappeared after the Second World War, when independent outboard engines became popular throughout Venice.
Women also fought for equality in this game. Almansi says women have only received a fraction of the prize money of men in regattas – about 13 percent.
“We started complaining,” he said, and eventually, the rewards were equalized.
University student Viola Ghigi, 25, is part of the new generation that is carrying this tradition forward. Raised in the Venetian neighborhood of Cannaregio, he says he was “born on a boat.”
“When I was born, the mothers were rowing together,” he said.
Today, he runs with his mother, Almansi and Almansi’s mother in local races, including the annual race.omen ceremony on the island of Giudecca on March 8 for International Women’s Day. Six women share one boat: two champions, two rowers and two who have never raced before.
“It’s a good event,” he said.
For Ghigi, rowing isn’t nostalgia – it’s who you are.
“Venice is different because it doesn’t have cars,” he said. “But it’s those who actually walk the canals, who make them an active part of their lives, that really make Venice what it is. If that culture and art is lost, then it’s nothing more than an amusement park.”
The warning comes in a city whose population has dwindled drastically in recent decades, while millions of tourists continue to pour in every year. Gondolas, once numbered in the thousands in the 16th century, now total about 430. This industry, which was once exclusively male, has only recently welcomed women, as they are now 16 or older.
Row Venice does not see itself as competing with gondoliers, who are licensed professionals in the regulated public transportation system. Batela rower is not a profession, but an art – and for these women, a calling.
As athletes, teachers of the organization they are recognized by Italy’s national Olympic committee, and profits from these courses are reinvested to help female athletes remain visible in a once-male-dominated culture.
Standing behind, Almansi plants his oar and retreats. The batela dives forward, cutting through the reflection of the falling front face.
In a city that is often accused of standing still, these women choose to keep moving.
