In this Alpine hamlet of weather-battered granite homes, a few scraggy dogs shuffle down cobblestone lanes with hardly a person in sight. Cheesemaker Arnaldo Blanc, who keeps a menagerie of cows and roosters in a smelly, hay-strewn basement below the kitchen, knows his village is dying.
”After us, it’s over,” lamented the 54-year-old Blanc as a howling wind funneled through streets barely wide enough for a car.
”We must resign ourselves.”
From Japan to Eastern Europe, shrinking birthrates and an urban migration are creating a crisis for rural communities. In the mountains where the Olympic Alpine events will be held, the problem is acute: The world is passing by villages such as Balboutet, and so are these Winter Games.
Set in the icy crags of a 2 900m peak called Ciantiplagna, Balboutet is only a half-hour drive from the main venue for ski jumping and about 100km from the
host city of Turin.
It is picturesque, but not often visited — a rise in the mountain obscures it from the traffic that winds through the valley just five kilometers below. That remoteness gave it no chance of hosting an Alpine event and scant access to the
Olympic bonanza as the games begin.
”The only thing that will remain from the games is the roads, which they fixed,” said Ettore Canton (40) who runs a dairy farm down the mountain from Balboutet.
Canton said his parents’ generation proudly hangs on to the old ways — living under the same roof with livestock, crafting pungent cheeses in damp cellars, planting onions and potatoes in rocky plots, mounting the heads of wild boar and chamois mountain goats they hunt each autumn.
Given the choice, he said, he’d leave.
”It’s extremely hard, but I’ve got to stay because we’ve spent a lot of money on this,” he said, waving an arm around his cinderblock-and-timber barn. ”There’s no future here … We work from morning to night, 365 days a year.”
Locals say the population of Balboutet has dwindled from about 250 three decades ago to about 30 today. The average age is about 60.
For Balboutet and its neighbors, survival could mean slowly relinquishing farmhouses to urbanites in search of a rustic weekend retreat, in much the same way swathes of Tuscany have been sold to wealthy Americans.
”The more beautiful villages will be conserved, due to … people who have second homes there,” said Franco Garelli, a sociologist at the main university in Turin.
They’ll come for the cool summers and hiking trails that lead through pine forests carpeted with wild mushrooms which locals transform into an olive oil-soaked delicacy.
But that future gives many villagers mixed feelings.
Augusto Blanc — who runs a restaurant in the nearby village of Usseaux and is not related to Arnaldo Blanc — knows his family’s livelihood depends on wealthy Italians who savor his home-cooked fondues, grilled vegetables and wine-stewed game.
But he is saddened to see a culture dying along with his generation.
”Outwardly, things may not change,” said Blanc, sitting in a dining room lined with hunting trophies. ”But all the inhabitants will be from the outside. It will be a cold village. They will have nothing to do with this culture.”
The Italian Alps are far from alone: Many developed nations face a similar dilemma. In rural areas worldwide, the problem is compounded by a decades-long exodus to cities that, for the first time in human history, means the number of people living in urban areas is roughly equal that in rural area.
Italy’s average birthrate of about 1,2 children per women — far below the rate of 2,1 required to maintain a population level — is one of the world’s lowest. And experts say the rate in the Piedmont region, where the Olympics are being held, is particularly low.
In his vaulted cowshed, Arnaldo Blanc says his struggle is just about staying alive.
”I like this way of life, and we’ve always lived like this,” he said, smiling sadly. ”Now, there’s nobody left.” – Sapa-AP