Mariovo <\/a>region from the area of Prilep up to Vitoli\u0161te. I met no other cars while driving along this road for about an hour.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_1_placeholder\nA deserted post office is an eerie welcome,<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_2_placeholder\n
but then a surprising smile – the village is not completely empty<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_3_placeholder\n
further inside, Vane’s father is standing on the yard entrance<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_4_placeholder\n
Vane joins and they both invite me in.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_5_placeholder\n
where I meet his mother<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_6_placeholder\n
Vane is preparing breakfast from ingredients they brought from town and hazelnuts he found in the village<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_7_placeholder\n
while I’m admiring Tito’s photo, who at that time was more important than family members<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_8_placeholder\n
Vane then takes me to a heart breaking tour in the village<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_9_placeholder\n
where empty dilapidated beautiful stone houses leave little space to remaining life<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_10_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_11_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_12_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_13_placeholder\n
a donkey here<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_14_placeholder\n
some vegetables there<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_15_placeholder\n
lively bee hives<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_16_placeholder\n
and a meeting with one of the few dozen people who still cling to peaceful rural life<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_17_placeholder\n
Tobacco is a main crop in this area, and while Prilep streets are decorated with tobacco leaves, here in the village they are a rare sight<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_18_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_19_placeholder\n
This is what used to be the lively main village square<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_20_placeholder\n
A short walk to the village edge takes us to the old deserted school which was called after a local writer<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_21_placeholder\n
and now serves as a cow shed<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_22_placeholder\n
we pass near another deserted building before we head to a concluding view of the village<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_23_placeholder\n
The contrast between Vane’s descriptions of happy childhood in a lively village and the gloomy present was striking.
\nVitoli\u0161te is only one village among many others that face such a destiny. While massive urbanization process is now a fact, societies must find ways to balance population density, and bring life back to rural areas, which are literally the bread and butter of human existence on earth and a fundamental cultural asset.\u00a0 Whether by subsidies as done in central Europe, developing new local sources of income such as tourism, or encouraging city dwellers who can work from home to settle down in such vast inspiring areas.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_24_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The story of Vitoli\u0161te in Macedonia is the story of numerous villages all over the world that were left to decay due to massive urbanization processes. We shall tour the village that once knew lively days, guided by Vane who used to live there as a child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[16,38,42,47],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-balkans","tag-architecture","tag-mountains","tag-people","tag-rural"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3053,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions\/3053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}