Where the street ends

Deep inside the Bükk and Cserehát hills in Eastern Hungary many dead-end villages can be found owing to characteristic features of these hills. According to the statistics in a few decades these villages are becoming empty.

The demographic problems of these dead-end villages started in the early 60-s. During the decade after the World War II, the main goal of the social government was to improve the heavy industry, this process was called the “soviet model”. The outdated and inefficient industry drew people from the villages to the nearby cities. In the shrinking villages the livestock and the agriculture almost vanished during the next decades. 30 years later, after the fall of communism in the 90-s most of these factories closed down and the workers became unemployed. The villages were no longer attractive and during the years they became superannuated. Most of the inhabitants have state jobs, some of them own small vegetable gardens, but more than 50 per cent of them are retired.