Fabrizio Cardinali doesn't crave the bright city lights.

He has no use for electricity in his life, which is why he has been living without electricity for more than half a century.

The 72-year-old is one of the few people in Europe who has not had to worry about rising energy costs since the energy crisis.

Cardinali, who looks like Karl Marx or Santa Claus with his long white beard, lives in a stone farmhouse in the mountains of the Verdicchio wine region, not far from the Italian city of Ancona on the eastern Adriatic coast.

He chose this life.

No electricity, no gas, no plumbing in the house.

"I was never interested in being a part of this world as I knew it.

That's why I left everything behind.

Family, the university, friends, my sports club.

I've given my life a whole new direction," he says, sitting in his humble kitchen.

"Giving up is not masochistic.

You give up something to get something new, something more important, in return.”

He used to live completely alone.

Today he has two roommates, a rooster, three chickens and a cat in his community, which he calls the "tribe of harmonious walnuts".

Fabrizio and his roommates, who just call themselves Agnese and Andrea, rely on a wood-fired stove for heating and cooking.

If they want to read, they use lamps that they use with the neighbors' used oils.

Agnese says she feels privileged to have the freedom to control her freedoms.

The 35-year-old moved in with Fabrizio two years ago.

Andrea is 46 and spends the weekdays in the farmhouse.

At the weekend he goes to his home town of Macerata to check on his mother.

The harmonious walnuts grow fruits and vegetables.

They produce their olive oil from their own olives.

They get honey from their own bee colonies.

A cooperative from the region also sells them legumes, cereals and wheat, which they grind themselves and use to bake their own bread.

If possible, they try to trade their excess food for what they currently need.

Some locals have dubbed him the hermit of Cupramontana, but Fabrizio doesn't see himself as a hermit.

He, on the other hand, believes that life is best lived in small societies.


For those who want to follow his example, Fabrizio Cardinali has the following tip: "Throw away your so-called smartphone."

He has lived like this for 51 years and has not regretted it himself.

There were certainly difficulties, but they never made him feel like he made the wrong decision.