Only one family lives in this Albanian village

The village of Mumaya is located just a few miles from the city of Tirana. An early 35 families lived in this village, and today only one family lived.

Shuhurie Nblau, a resident of this village, says that all families are gone. “There's no family, the lights are cut, the water's cut. Let's go to the spring to get some drinking water. To wash up the house well”, the elderly woman says.

85-year-old Elez Almuka, even though he's been back for years to take care of his childhood home.
You don't live here. There's no water. I come for fun, to see the old house. I grew up here”, says Allmuca.

But this is not the only abandoned village.

“Albania has had about 3,000 villages. From our survey, about 500 villages have completely grown older and no longer have families”, says Agim Rarapaj, head of the Agroturism Council.

According to Rarapaj, abandoning villages has also affected the 100 villages project.

And our concern is actually better, because even in the “100 villages” program, there are villages that have very few families that have great potential for tourism and agro-turism.

If today the possibilities are for 100 villages, tomorrow they will be for more, and if it takes tens of millions of euros to operate today, it will take us hundreds of millions later to set up function that we may not find and these villages will eventually be abandoned”, Rrapaj says.

According to INSTAT projections, Albania's population in the years ahead is expected to decrease by 360,000.