If you, too, have longed to be at the other end of the Earth at least once in your life, due to the stress of everyday life, you've surely wondered where the most remote place is where you can be alone, where no one could ever reach you. The answer to this question is very simple: finding places unexplored by man is impossible, but in the most isolated point on Earth exists one of the smallest and at the same time least considered communities. We're talking about Tristan da Cunha , an archipelago in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean that belongs to the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena.
In the middle of the blue
The Tristians , as the locals call them, number just under 300 and are located 2431 km from Cape Town and 3425 km from Montevideo. They are practically isolated from everything and everyone. The island boasts the title of one of the most remote places on earth, due to its distance from the mainland and the lack of ports and airports; in fact, it can only be reached after a week's sailing . Most of the inhabitants live in the capital, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas , where the community's main political institutions are also located. Executive authority rests with Queen Elizabeth II of England, who delegates her powers to the governor of Saint Helena. Since the latter will have to reside on Saint Helena, he will need to appoint a local administrator who, together with a council of eight Tristians, will form the island's government. Tristan da Cunha has its own laws, but in the event of legislative gaps, integration will be carried out with the legislation of Saint Helena.
A not very utopian communism
In any case, in the small and remote island community, customs have gradually developed that make it a society sui generis . A sort of successful communism , the likes of which have been seen in few other places in contemporary history. Expenses are shared among all inhabitants, and revenues are redistributed equitably. Private property does not exist, and community assets belong to everyone. Unemployment is a temporary situation, and every citizen has the right and duty to reenter the labor market, even with the help of the community. The people of Tristano have always lived from agriculture, livestock farming, and fishing, and still do so, but they have managed to find another source of income: stamps . They are sold to collectors from all over the world. Tourism, despite the unrivaled beauty of the area, is limited by the lack of a port or an airport, and by the almost complete absence of transportation and communication routes.
The link with Italy
Despite the distance, there is a bond, even a rather profound one, between the most remote island in the world and Italy, particularly with Camogli , a fishing village in the province of Genoa. Back on October 3, 1892, the brigantine Italia , captained by Rolando Perasso, shipwrecked off the island of Tristan. The sixteen crew members stayed on the island awaiting a friendly ship to take them back to civilization. On January 21, the Wilde Rose took the castaways on board to take them back to Cape Town. However, two Camogli natives, Gaetano Lavarello and Andrea Repetto , despite the captain's insistence, decided to remain on the island. The two claim to want to stay on Tristan because during the shipwreck they had made a vow to the Madonna del Boschetto, patron saint of Camogli, that if they survived the fire on the Italia, they would live the rest of their lives in exile on the island of Tristan, far from the hustle and bustle of civilian life. But the truth is otherwise: the two sailors fell in love with two island women. From these loves, children were born, who contributed to the island's population, and even today we have descendants of these two Italian foreigners, who in fact bear the same surname. A third sailor on the brigantine, Agostino Lavarello , also falls in love with a girl from the island, Mary Green, but decides to board the ship that came to their rescue to return to his mother in Liguria. At the dock in Camogli, the sailor cannot help but tell his friends of the three months of love he spent with that girl and his regret at not having been brave enough. Mary wrote him a letter explaining that her love was unchanged and that she would wait for him in Tristan, but the sailor's mother, with the complicity of a postal worker, burned that letter and all the future ones.
A story of simple men and their extraordinary choices, a story of renunciation, of sacrifice for higher values like love, a tale of jealousy and intrigue. A community that has made its solitude its strength, living primarily on subsistence and connection with Mother Earth. A place where one can rediscover oneself before an endless horizon.
Philip Campo Antico
