A sign on a winding road in the mountains of Sardinia, facing an abandoned playground, welcomes anyone arriving in Perdasdefogu, a city that has won the “world record for family longevity”. Black-and-white portraits of wizened locals who have now reached 100 years of age are set against the backdrop of a quiet street near Longevity Square. Campaign posters promise that the city will be reborn thanks to DNA and longevity.
An isolated city once known primarily for its proximity to a military base that for decades was a launchpad for economic opportunity and long-range missiles, Fogu Lost is trying to position itself as the world’s capital of longevity.
Hit, like so many other Italian cities, by job losses, a low birth rate and the exodus of young people, Perdasdefogu is taking advantage of its recognition by Guinness World Records as being the municipality in the world with the highest concentration of centenarians (at the moment, they are seven, out of a total population of 1,780 inhabitants) to try an economic rejuvenation.
The hope is that mortality-averse foreigners eager to discover the secrets of prolonged perpetuation will fuel a tourist boom, or that genetic researchers interested in studying the raw materials of Fogu Lost’s inhabitants will invest in state-of-the-art facilities or, who knows, even improve the weak telephone signal by installing fiber optic cables.
But there is an intruder trying to penetrate the territory where centenarians reign. Seoulo, an even smaller town located more in the heart of the island, threatens Fogu Losses’ grandiose plans, launching himself as a rival for the title. Fogu Losses wants to kick her out of the field.
“It’s not even worth talking about these people,” said local engineer and politician Salvatore Mura, 63, responsible for Perdasdefogu’s candidacy for the Guinness record. He argued that since Seoulo has less than a thousand inhabitants, it does not meet the Guinness requirements to be included in the ranking; therefore, it is out of contention. “It’s a matter of math.”
Alongside Giacomo Mameli – an agile and alert writer aged just 81 who hopes the city’s new status will generate publicity for the literary festival he runs – Mura walked to the Judgment Day square, passing a mural of elderly men from pullover and beret.
The two proposed all sorts of theories to explain the longevity of the Lost Fire. They pointed to the many gardens, with their colossal zucchinis; praised the local potato bread, suggesting it was studied by geneticists, and extolled the natural digestive aids, including a cheese that jiggles like a cube of gelatin.
“This here is a natural antacid,” Mameli said, holding up a bowl of cheese.
The two pointed to portraits of centenarians next to the flower shop — which owes its biggest sales to funerals — and the inn run by Mameli’s sister, who mentioned that Seoulo has a higher concentration of centenarians. (“But it doesn’t have a thousand people,” snapped his brother scathingly. “Unfortunate for her.”)
They entered the bar belonging to the Melis family, which in 2014 won the Guinness record for the oldest age together, as nine living brothers who together were more than 800 years old.
Mura said the economic miracle of Perdas, as the locals call the town, has already begun: with a wine brand inspired by centuries-old inhabitants and a new firm that promotes its honey as being sweetened by the air “breathed by the elderly.”
On their walk, he and Mameli greeted city elders in the square and on the terraces of their homes and tried to convince members of the centenarian club to memorize lines about the power of local minestrone, mountain air, chickpeas and the simplicity of lifestyle in Fogu Losses. But centenarians showed a tendency to deviate from the script.
Mura encouraged Bonino Lai, 102, to talk about local superfoods. Instead, Lai recalled that after missile launches from the base, which at one time was closed for dumping dangerous, uranium-rich waste, he and his friends would scour the site for components that might have fallen, “as well as of mushrooms”.
“They were very good,” he commented. “Everyone picked the mushrooms.”
Others said variety is the spice of life — or at least its preservative.
“One day I’ll make this from here”, exemplified Annunziata Stori, who will turn 100 in August, as she rolled semolina to form fregola grains, a dough in balls. “The next day I make spaghetti. The next day it’s lasagna.”
Adolfo Melis, who is also 99 years old and is one of the surviving members of the family of record-breaking brothers, keeps a third in his coat pocket and said that the important thing is not to get excited about what happens.
The city’s officially oldest resident, Antonio Brundu, is 104 years old, and his father lived to be 103. He spoke gravely about perseverance in the midst of suffering.
“If you don’t have a steady job, what kind of life will you have?” she asked, looking suspiciously at the pile of local newspapers that reported Seoulo’s attempt to contest the title of Lostsoffogu, and with concern for her 26-year-old great-granddaughter. , who was ignoring him, attentive to his phone. “I had 45 goats.”
One thing they all agreed on was their pride in their city’s new record.
“Per inhabitant, we are number 1,” said Antonio Lai, 100 years old (no direct relation to Bonino). Known as “Pistola”, he proudly said he renewed his driver’s license just two years ago. (“It must have been an English wallet,” commented his grandson, Giampiero Lai. “He walked on the wrong side of the street.”)
The fame provided by the Guinness ranking was accompanied by benefits that Lai does not intend to give up. “An 84-year-old woman – a fat woman – came over and gave me a kiss,” he said.
The few young people left in Fogu Lost aren’t equally thrilled that their city has the title of oldest on the planet.
“Everything here is made for the elderly,” commented Alessio Vittorio Lai, 16, the great-grandson of “Pistola”, as he inserted coins into a machine to buy cigarettes.
His friend Gabriele Pastrelo, also 16, grandson of mushroom aficionado Bonino Lai, agreed. “Nothing happens around here.”
Seoul has a similar welcome sign proclaiming it “The City of Centenarians,” and it has also decorated its hillside street with black-and-white photos of residents who have reached the 100-year milestone. His tour shop carries copies of “The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100” by Dan Buettner, who describes himself as an “explorer” and holds the Guinness record for long-distance cycling. He is helping put Seoulo and other so-called Blue Zone hotspots, where people live long lives, on the world map.
Residents of Seoul reacted with derision to Perdasdefogu’s claim to occupy the geriatric throne.
“It’s just not like that,” said Maria Murgia, 89, walking in a black dress and veil with her friend Consuelo Melis, 30, who wore leggings and a sports top. “They miscalculated.”
“It’s us,” shouted Giovanni Deiana, 79, sitting on a bench with his friends in an empty playground and worried that his wife would live to be 106, as her mother did. “We!”
Like Perdas and its missile base, Seulo used to be known for something else too. A mural on the town hall wall shows a bearded young man from the 1930s wearing pastor’s boots and holding a medical degree, illustrating the city’s previous record: the highest density of college graduates in the country.
“But they left,” lamented the mayor, Enrico Murgia, 55.
The mayor said that the city’s five living centenarians – with two other inhabitants about to turn 100 – give Seoulo, which has only 790 inhabitants, a much higher density of centenarians than Perdasdefogu (last Saturday, Pietrina Murgia died, aged 100). years old, reducing the number of centenarians to four).
An engineer by training, Murgia drew pie charts and wrote equations to demonstrate “the real number that makes us the longest-lived city in the world.”
Calculations aside, the mayor said, Seoulo’s distinction for the extreme longevity of its inhabitants is a “marketing vehicle.” He walked downtown holding some tourist brochures in his hand (“Discover the elixir of long life”), which he distributed to people already living in Seoul.
Murgia made a stop at the home of Anna Mulas, 100 years old. Asked what her secret to her amazing resilience is, Murgia spoke of carrying bags of cement over her head to help build her house. But what she mostly did was criticize her daughter for not giving visitors enough candy.
Murgia walked to the Museum of Longevity (to be opened soon), painted with murals of the elderly, and promised “an experiential tourist activity”.
As the sun went down, he enjoyed the view of his softly colored city and lamented that years of swine flu had led to the culling of thousands of fish, costing many jobs and forcing at least 200 residents to flee the city.
“Seoul would have a thousand inhabitants,” he said. “With that 200 more, we could have put an end to the swagger of the Fogu Lost people.”
Translation of Clara Allain
