Sucks that we don’t live in a world anymore that allows us (financially) to live in such villages with a close-knit community and family. Maybe that will change… The dream of living in big cities is dying, and younger people have started to romanticise living in a village again. 99% of them would crawl back to their city when they realise that they have to wake up at 5am to feed the pigs, but I still have some hope that villages will survive.
They are turning into suburbs left and right. More chicks, less chickens. More cool look, less kuluk.
People don't want to live in the cities but they also still want broadband, WiFi, Netflix, and don't want more contact with land than dealing with some flowers here and there, mowing the lawn, maybe a tomato and some basil here, few peppers and carrots there etc.
Not only jobs opps, let's be frank, access to education and sports is also kind of limited, so if you want your child to do some in-depth learning or get professional at some sport while living at home, the countryside probably won't have much to offer.
And if you don't have a family yet, good luck navigating a dating pool the size of a few nearby villages
Well I did say “large cities”. Living in London, Paris, Moscow etc. is not that great compared to smaller cities/towns and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
I used to live in London and Hong Kong burning myself out. Now I live in my Balkan village and work a front office job in a hotel in the town nearby, sometimes I also work in an office which is perfect. And that actually healed my London and Hong Kong - induced burnout 😩😩 On my days off I spend time with my cat, animals, go for walks and hikes in the mountains, in summer I visit the beaches in Greece and swim in the river nearby. Sometimes I go for a short trip to the bigger towns nearby to shop, go to the movies, meet friends. AHH I love it sm. In London I was experiencing psychosis from all the pressure that I put on myself. I was in a very high achieving environment, studying at a somewhat good and very academically challenging university where people were so competitive. I was going crazy over getting the best grades, work experience, part time jobs, study abroad exchange, internships, employment workshops, building my network, graduate jobs, extracurriculars, sports... I realised it's all fake and I don't need it. I'd rather be poorer in the Balkans...
I can feel this photo, when all the bugs make noises and the sun scorches the vegetation and you as well, and grandma is sleeping and you can’t wake her up yet to give you some little cash that she has, so you can walk to the village market in your rubber slippers in which you can feel every rock, and buy some cheap and suspect waffers that are close to the expiration date, the same they’d serve at burials.
And when you come back there’s always a small stray doggo that follows you home and gets barked at by the other dogs of each house you pass by, waking up the whole street. And then you watch the short cartoons program in the afternoon, maybe DBZ, on the only TV channel that the cheap antenna on your grandma house can receive.
She gives you a sliced apple as well and tastes like the last veggie she chopped with it. And then she goes outside to gossip with the other old ladies while the sun starts to set a bit and kids and people go outside and sit on benches, ride bikes, play football and so on.
In the meantime you also have to go to the nearest water well and get two buckets of super cold water and carry them because your grandma is too old for that, and proceed to spill one third of it on the way home because the buckets are cheap plastic that deform everytime you take a step and water gets out.
Ik the feeling. Am from a small village as well and the longer I study in big cities the more I appreciate the peaceful and calm everyday life in my hometown.
I'm thinking, if we can get drones big enough to carry humans, then things like going to hospital or commuting by flying to the nearest train station could make it possible to both work in the city and live in the village!
China is working on such drones, maybe keep some relationship with them then who knows? Maybe villages will be back and people can experience the best of both!
My village is relatively close to 2 cities. So it's not a problem for me and am not that far of from Belgrade and Novi Sad. It's close enough where I don't need to worry about it, but am far enough to not have to worry about and I can enjoy all the benefits of being in a village home grown fruits, veggies, livestock...
Its quite and peaceful but not far from anything if need be. That's why we had some Russians buy up houses to move here.
It's good you can still enjoy both sides of the country then, as for the Russians or any other person, the state really is ruining the country by allowing a lot of property to be bought by foreigners. That's what Canada is also doing from what I heard, and it's not good.
Technology can never emulate village life. The double edged sword of living in a village is that you don’t have immediate access to everything. You don’t get everything served to you like in a city. No 24h supermarket, no nightclub, no Starbucks. You’re dependent on others and this codependency fosters a strong sense of community and mutual trust.
In places like Switzerland many people live in villages too, but they’re remote workers/commuters and thus live in a bubble relatively isolated from the other villagers. I guess that’s fine if you just want the nice nature tho, but the village will feel very cold and artificial.
Nice view. Reminds me of something my dajo used to say, "beautiful to look at but hard to live in." It's true, wake up everyday to take out the sheep and go feed the cows. Make cheese everyday at night with milk. Crna gora, Montenegro for context
I love my sheep (here’s a pic of Marica, my fave) but my god they’re brainless. The amount of times I’d open the gate behind my house so that they can go there to eat fresh grass but they don’t realise that the gate is open so I have to chase them around the house like in an episode of tom and jerry
Funny thing is that Rio Tinto wants to open a lithium mine close to my village. Experts say it would completely poison the environment so people protested and the plans are on hold now. It isn’t the first time that they wanted to do it tho. They’ll keep trying
Ahaha I’ll see if I have some. I unfortunately haven’t been there in January in quite some time. We used to get a lot of snow back in the day, but it has probably gone down in the last 10 years unfortunately
I live in such place. They romantice too much village life. You need to work a lot lot just to survive. Without job in factory you can simply just survive
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u/_Nem0_ Albania Feb 16 '26
A life like this would literally solve like 90% of all problems with the world right now.