Choudetsi or Houdetsi, with 863 inhabitants in 2001, plan 22 kilometers south of Heraklion, at an altitude of 440-470. The occupation of the settlers is viticulture and olive growing. The village is also famous for its table grapes. Operation dialogue kindergarten and elementary school.
There are various interpretations of the origin of the name of the village. According to a legend, the name "Houdetsi" is due to the first lord resident of the village, Houndios. According to Paul Faure, the word Houdetsi must have come from the Arabic "quds" meaning saint, but without explaining why. Another version of the name Houdetsi is the origin of the word from the composition of the words hus (soil) and awe (fear). Correlation that is interpreted as everyone wishes. The name of the village, according to Venetian documents (Cudeci, Chudeci), Turkish and others, is mentioned for the first time in 1279. Before this date there are no data, at least in writing, that speak of the name of the settlement.
As evidenced by the excavations
and findings (clay head of Athena with helmet, aqueducts, in the
area of ​​Flampouriaris), the settlement must have existed since the
Minoan era or perhaps even older.
The oldest known mention in
the village is made in a contract of 1279, where it is mentioned as
Tudeti, a bad transcription of the word Chudeci according to
Stergios Spanakis. It is mentioned in documents of the Ducal Archive
of Chandakas dating from 1379 and 1395. In the Venetian census of
Kastrofylakas it is mentioned in the province of Pediados with 233
inhabitants and in the Turkish one in 1671 with 27 raids and the
name Hodec. In 1834, 20 Christian and 5 Turkish families were
counted, while in 1881 it numbered 339 Christians and 12 Turks.
It is a traditional village, with
continuous development, of special natural beauty and with buildings
of traditional architecture, while it is worth visiting the Music
Labyrinth, which was founded in 1982 by Ross Daly, with the main
object of initiating young people in a creative approach musical
traditions from almost all over the world, and since 2002 in
collaboration with the Municipality "Nikos Kazantzakis", houses its
activities in an old building, tastefully designed, in Houdetsi. A
spring gushes in the center of the village.
At a distance of
500 meters in a valley is the Sinaitic Monastery of Spiliotissi. It
celebrates on August 15, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin
Mary.