Eugi Gufo's siteEugi Gufo

In September 2010, at the request of a Russian friend, I tried to produce a photographic reportage from a random small town in northern Italy. The aim was to make Russian readers reflect on the conditions of the deep Russian countryside. And once again I realised that even national reality («one’s own home») is not really known to everyone. This is one of the reasons why I tell Italians about my travels in Italy.
So now I am trying to publish, slightly adapted, the Italian translation of that story: a randomly chosen town in the province of Lodi.

It is well known that in the North (or throughout Italy?) there are plenty of small towns that were born and grew around scattered farmsteads. At the beginning of their existence, each small town was a gamble taken by its first builders.

The farmsteads carry on on their own, try to modernise, and sometimes die along with globalised death. This sad end no longer has any impact on the fate of the settlement built around them.

In the past, life in small northern towns looked like this:

Now, instead, life is lived a little differently:

In every small town there must be its own boss, the Richest Citizen, owner of the best house.

Other minimal necessary elements of a small town are a church, a bar (at least one), the villa of the local (former) nobility, a water tower, and some buildings of unknown purpose.

There is usually also the Town Hall, with the mayor locked inside.

In the square there must be a solitary telephone box (in every sense).

And then all around one sees many agricultural fields stretching for several kilometres in every direction (up to the next settlement of the same kind). The crops are often intended for the production of animal feed.

In the fields one often encounters old (or almost old) pylons.

It is practically impossible to describe in words the degradation found in Russian agricultural villages, so sooner or later I will also publish a proper photographic reportage about them. For now I will limit myself to saying that by now only abroad does a Russian remember that fields are supposed to smell of manure. But photographs are unable to convey that.