Nicolás de la Fuente, a 92-year-old walking his dog on the desolate streets of Molezuelas de la Carballeda, remembers the Spanish village’s heyday as a flourishing farming community. “We had everything,” he recalls. “There were five herds of 500 sheep each. There were two herds of 600 goats. There were cows, 200 or 300. And horses and chickens.”
But the era of pastoral abundance is long gone. Commercial activity has virtually disappeared. This remote village of stone walls and unlocked doors has become an economic desert. The average age of its 47 residents has climbed to 70, making it the oldest municipality in Zamora, a northwestern province at the heart of the so-called “emptied Spain” or España vaciada. “Now there’s nothing,” says de la Fuente. “It’s all over.”
Rural depopulation has long been an issue in parts of southern and eastern Europe. But the trend is becoming an existential threat for many places and it is spreading across the continent, leaving no country unaffected. While rural areas that are well connected to towns and cities are doing better — particularly after the pandemic, which triggered a desire for more green space — the most remote areas are struggling.