Rebellion against the state has given way to depopulation. Although it is on the list of 100 tourist villages in the country, Lazarat seems to have not yet benefited from this project. The lack of prospects and employment has meant that the village is left with the elderly who receive pensions and 9-year-old students. The youth and the working age have almost all left.
10 years ago, Lazarat, known as the rebellious village of cannabis sativa cultivation and where the state was non-existent, became at the same time the village where the largest anti-drug operation ever undertaken by the Albanian police was recorded, which removed this village from the list of places where cannabis was cultivated.
After this operation, the village of Lazarat, today the administrative unit of the same name, was included in the 100 tourist villages project. But how much has this unit really benefited from this project? The residents we find in Lazarat give us an insight into social life.
"Completely destroyed, not from drugs but from unemployment. People have all left. There is no investment."
The village today lives by the miracle of God, do you see any new people anywhere? How do you say why they left? For good?
They've all left, there's no one, the youth has left, there's no work.
"We are not worse off. Greece has passed through several times, Italy, Germany, the destruction that this system has caused has not been done by anyone, not even Enver Hoxha," say some of the residents.
Even someone who is trying to keep a family business running seems to work more with a notebook than with money in hand.
"They have fled poverty, they have left their homes, their mothers, their fathers alone."
Even an inaugurated center for collecting medicinal plants did not function for a single day and today it is closed, as if to show that Lazarat, like all other rural areas of the country, is heading towards depopulation without any prospects or opportunities to live and work. (A2 Televizion)
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MUND TE LEXONI GJITHASHTU
