There are a lot of unusual places in the world. These include the Japanese village of Nagoro. She became famous for a huge number of dolls. We can say that they are the ones who replace people who have left here or who have passed away.
The village is located on the island of Shikoku. The village was once a full-fledged village with hundreds of inhabitants. Gradually, young people left their homes, hoping to find a future in big cities, and old people died. Fewer than thirty inhabitants remained in Nagoro, but new dolls appeared on the streets more and more often.
Amazing village
A report about an interesting village was published by Thesun. Photographer Trevor Mogg walked the streets, counting more than a hundred dolls, but in fact there are no less than 400 of them. Unusual figures met at stops, fields, inside houses and on verandas, they were in parking lots.
Trevor felt very uncomfortable with the lack of people. He was able to go through the village in ten minutes, it is not large. I have not met either tourists or local residents, because Nagoro is isolated and very remote, therefore guests do not come to it.
The idea of replacing people with dolls belongs to the artist Ayano Tsukimi. She lived here but left. The first doll appeared in 2002. It had to be made of cloth and straw to scare away birds when the daughter visited her father. The new creation settled in the village after the death of a neighbor, to whom Ayano was very attached. Tsukimi was so used to talking with a woman that she decided to create a doll similar to that one.
New residents
The school closed here in 2012 with the last two students graduating. Now there are only dolls in school uniforms in the building. They listen carefully to the teacher standing near the blackboard, or look at a book.
With the decrease in the number of inhabitants, the artist came up with the idea of how to preserve the memory of everyone, as if those who had left the village were nearby. The idea turned out to be successful: the village, turning into a ghost, was changing. Each doll was created in full size, depicting a real person who once lived here.
Ayano decided to place her sculptures in the places where she most often met this or that person. As a result, no less than 350 dolls have appeared in the village over 12 years. The creator dressed each of them in old clothes. When clothes worn out or faded, Tsukimi replaced them with new ones.
Draft warning
Ayano, 65, is the youngest resident of Nagoro. In an interview with the BBC, the craftswoman said that the production of each character takes about three days. Ears require special attention, because according to the artist's plan, all her creations should be heard well.
What happened to Nagoro is by no means extraordinary. There are many such villages throughout the Land of the Rising Sun. The villages remain abandoned after the departure of the youth. The old people are in them on their own. With her project, Tsukimi drew attention to the alarming situation.
Gradually, such "inhabitants" began to appear in other villages of Japan, where the population is decreasing. The Puppet Village also points to a demographic problem. By the middle of the century, according to research, the number of older people will be close to half.
