AGI – “It’s time to start building your European escape in the beautiful paradise of Sardinia.” Thus Ollolai, a small village in the Nuoro area in the heart of the island, is aimed at Americans, potential digital nomads or aspiring owners of houses to renovate, in the wake of the ‘Houses for 1 euro’ initiative launched about ten years ago to counteract the inexorable depopulation of this fragment of Barbagia. The marketing gimmick, complete with a ‘do-it-yourself’ website in English, is the mayor’s Francis Columbuswho made use of the collaboration of a brother who emigrated to the United States to put it online and capture the attention of those disappointed by Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections on November 6 and who are thinking of emigrating.
The news of the launch of liveinollolai.com ended up on CNN with an online piece entitled ‘Italian country offers houses for 1 euro to Americans worried about the result of the elections in the United States’. “In a few hours the site recorded 6 thousand views”, the mayor tells AGI, “and we have already received a thousand expressions of interest and requests for information“. The proposal is not only aimed at the American public, but Columbu wanted to ride the wave to bring the project and the issue of desertification of the internal areas of Sardinia back into the spotlight, as has already happened repeatedly in recent years. In 2018, first of the pandemic, had been filmed in Ollolai, where there are now just 1,200 inhabitants a reality show broadcast by a Dutch television networkstarring five families from the Netherlands trying to move to the Sardinian village. Three have actually decided to buy a house and return several times a year. A French family did the same.
“A house to be renovated was recently purchased by a South African couple”, reports the mayor, who also focuses heavily on digital nomads through www.workfromollolai.com, which offers an almost free stay (for 1 euro) in the town “a successful professionals”, to work remotely, in exchange for sharing their skills. “We have received around 35 thousand requests.” Among those who then took the opportunity there was a web designer, who passed on her know-how to the community. Last year this initiative, launched by the Municipality in collaboration with the ‘Sa Mata’ association and aimed in particular at American professionals, was relaunched by the ‘Guardian’.
Ollolai has had a special connection with the United States for many years, through Frank Columbus (no relation to the current mayor), the former body building champion who passed away in 2019 and was a close friend of the actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two former athletes met periodically in Ollolai, where the former pastor invited his friend, whose wedding he had also been best man. On the new site – the mayor announces – the properties to be renovated will soon be visible and can be purchased according to the ‘houses for 1 euro’ formula or at higher prices, up to 100 thousand euros, when they require minimal renovations. To carry out the project the Municipality has committed 20 thousand euros. “But many more would be needed”, explains Columbu, who hopes for financial intervention from the Sardinia Region, “to encourage people to choose to come here”.
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