23/01/2026

FRIDAY | JAN 23, 2026

23

LYFE

Low in population, high in spirit

o Hobbit houses might just save Moldovan village

T HEY call Rogojeni the “hobbit village”, and its little half-buried houses, built to resist Moldova’s cold winters and hot summers, do look like something from The Lord of the Rings . The traditional dugout houses have put the shrinking settlement on the tourist map and locals hope they may also help to save it. “We do fear that the village could disappear, considering that there are so few people left,” said mayor Ruslan Groza, with only 30 people left in a hamlet that once had a population of 200. “My goal is to develop this locality, build roads, repair where possible the houses that can be preserved and develop tourism,” he said. Rogojeni is one of the last villages that still boasts the low stone “basca” houses built into grassy hills, with their small doors forcing people to stoop down when they enter. More and more tourists are coming after one of the dwellings was repaired and opened to visitors in 2020, said Groza. A South Korean student was visiting when AFP went to the village two hours north of the capital Chisinau earlier this month. He had even been invited to join a pig roast by locals ahead of the Jan 7 Christmas celebration. Such customs are “hard to see” elsewhere, said Sangkyoung Lee, 22, who looked amazed as smoke rose from the burning hay covering the pig

Local women wearing traditional Moldovan outfits sing Christmas Carols next to a ‘basca’ museum-house in Rogojeni village.

Singing, dancing Together with other women from the village, including two grandmothers over 80, she sang traditional carols in front of the museum, ringing a bell while a man played the accordion, as part of the pre-Christmas celebration. On one of the more joyous songs, the two grandmothers hugged each other and started dancing and cheering. “When I got married here, there were lots of people, there were children, the village was beautiful,” Maria Ardeleanu, one of the two women, said. “Now there’s no one left. Just us, a bunch of old women,” she added, saying she enjoys talking to tourists who want to know what it is like to live in the “basca”. “I tell them during the summer it is cool, it’s nice inside. And in winter, it is warm and I don’t go out much,” she said. When the carols ended, the singers threw wheat grains to the listeners to wish them prosperity. Ardeleanu’s dance partner counted the ones she caught. “Eight. Tradition says that’s how many years I’ve still got to live,” she said cheerfully. – AFP

as snow fell all around. Inside the house-turned museum, pig stew, polenta with sheep cheese, pickles and red wine

were served around a table in a small room with an arched entrance and blue walls decorated with traditionally handsewn carpets in

lively colours.

Exodus While mayor Groza, a 46-year-old history teacher, takes pride in the “immense cultural heritage” of the village, he admits most of it has been left to decay, like an old school and church of which only the outer walls remain. With tens of thousands of Moldovans emigrating every year mostly to EU countries for a better life, many villages have become ghost towns. Since 2014, Moldovan villages have lost almost half a million inhabitants, according to a 2024 census, with a million Moldovans estimated to be living abroad. But the mayor’s wife Mariana Groza, 45, is optimistic, insisting that villages will “revive along with tradition”. A literature and French teacher, she started an embroidery and traditional costumes workshop, posting her work on TikTok. “I have loved this craft since childhood. Not a day goes by without me sewing a cross-stitch or crocheting something. If I don’t, the day passes in vain for me. We must promote traditions,” she said.

Local women wearing traditional Moldovan clothes sit to eat a meal inside a ‘basca’ museum-house. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

Number of ski resorts in Japan slide 40% from 1999 peak, hit record low THE number of operational ski resorts in Japan in 2025 fell to a record low, 40% down from the peak in 1999, due to a lack of snow caused by climate change and despite growing demand from overseas tourists, according to an industry group, Kyodo News reported. There were 417 locations operating last year, down from 698 in 1999, with ageing facilities and a slump in domestic tourism also hitting the industry despite some resorts introducing perks to attract more visitors, said the Japan Funicular Transport Association, which provides information on ski resorts across the country. The association compiled the number by tallying domestic ski resorts that operate lifts authorised by the government. There were 636 facilities in the first survey in 1989, with the number gradually rising until 1999. It fell below 600 in 2006 and below 500 in 2014, hitting fresh record lows in successive surveys. Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido had the largest number of ski resorts in 2025 at 92, followed by the central Japan prefectures of Nagano and Niigata with 80 and 46, respectively. The fall comes as Japan continues to see record numbers of foreign tourists, logging around 39.07 million visitors in the first 11 months of 2025, already exceeding 36.87 million in the whole of 2024, according to the Japan National Tourism Organisation. – Bernama-Kyodo