Visiting the Smallest Village in Italy - SABBIA 🏔- in winter! Or a day with Sabbia's most popular CAT!

elenahornfilm (64) in travel • 7 years ago (edited)

Hi Steemians,

We promised last weekend that we would drive back up into the Alps in order to report from another village on the edge of abandonment. Sabbia is one of these places and its situation is even more dramatic than Cervatto’s.

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Since the first of January Sabbia lost it’s independence as a commune.

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Sabbia had the youngest mayor in Italy - he is only 26 years old and is called Carlo Stragiotte. He is also the youngest resident in Sabbia. But unfortunately he lost his honorary job now because the village has joined with Varallo.
In case we can motivate any Steemian here to live in Sabbia for some time - there is excellent internet and you would find a very welcoming and progressive community! And of course gorgeous mountains! 🏔

A democratic decision was taken to go down this route - however, there are plenty of people in Sabbia that are extremely upset about this change.

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The average age of the population in Sabbia is - 70 years.

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Sabbia’s oldest houses are made of stone and resist the fierce weather conditions for centuries. The cat population in the village does the same. They are masters of survival and are best friends with every single resident of the village. Both cats and locals feel a strong sense of local identity. They have their own traditional costume even though there are only 40 Sabbianesi living there.

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The residents are truly suffering their new merge with Varallo. At least they used to have a little power through their independence and the fact that they had their own mayor. Now, they are now more than a little group of voters.
To get substantial funding in order to keep the village at float will be tricky, with only 40 souls.

If you ever come to this little village, you will experience true silence. As long as you didn’t bring a friend along who is circulating a drone around your head to capture the sheer beauty of the village hanging on the side of the mountain.

Travelling from down the windy streets in Piemonte feels like floating down a calm river that wants to show you the beauty it has seen growing over the last 1000 years. And it also wants to show you the decline it’s witnessing in the ultimate 30 years.

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Sons that leave for university and have no intention to ever return. Maybe they swing by for Easter and Christmas or bring their first girlfriend there in order to brag about their beautiful childhood - the freedom, the cheese, the breathtaking sunsets. But then they will leave again and start skipping Easter and soon also Christmas.

There is too much work. It’s too stressful to drive up to the mountains.
Even though the truth is that they can’t afford the petrol because the rent they pay for 40 Square Meters in Milan is enormously high.

So their rips cramp up a little more, every year that they didn’t visit until the rips build a rusty fence around their heart. Also calling suddenly feels like a big effort and the connection is bad.

We are working on a film Fuori al Comune to bring attention to these little villages and we will report on their development here on Steemit. Maybe digitalisation can bring a change to the destiny of these forgotten places.

Steem on and let’s bring the digital revolution also into the smallest communes of this beautiful planet! 🗺

Alessandro + Elena

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7 years ago by elenahornfilm (64)

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purepinay (73) · 7 years ago

It's sad to know that there are people who would leave this beautiful place but the world is so big and there's so much to see. Though if I were to retire, I would love to look for a small village something like this, with an amazing view and we serenity is and of course, with lot of cats ;)

Thank you for visiting me and I missed you a lot. I barely go on instagram and fb since Steemit is giving more stuff to do, it's overwhelming. I even unfinished blogs and a lot of photos piling up, lol. I hope for your success on this new film you guys are making. Thank you for always inspiring me with your stories. Remember how we used to exchange very long comments, longer than some other posts in Steemit? haha it was always a fun time with you! TC always!

Love,
Gilaine

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elenahornfilm (64) · 7 years ago

Hello @purepinay,

I didn't know you're also in love with cats! 🐈I think they are such marvellous friends and charming neighbours.
I will make sure to capture more cats along the way in those remote villages.

@purepinay, you're a popstar on steemit - of course you have no time for facebook or instagram anymore! ⭐️ But I think steemit is actually a fantastic way to interact with people you have not met -- yet. I hope we will meet each other in person one day! Maybe in a remote Italian Village?

Yes, I remember our post-ping-pong. It felt a bit like writing letters, didn't it? I used to have a letter book with my best friend at school. We wrote some sort of a diary into the same book and exchanged it at every day. Being on steemit with you feels very similar.

Love,
Elena