"Say 'Hello!' to the youngest community in the game!"

#PokemonGO: Apologies for the long post. I just wanted to share our story with the rest of the world!Aizawl is the capital of Mizoram, a small state situated along the hills of the north-east of India. Most of its residents must have been introduced to Pokemon through the anime, as the console games were not too popular, but the franchise itself is quite big among the younger generation.So when June 2016 rolled around, we were just as excited and hyped up as the rest of the world, for Pokemon Go - the chance to catch Pokemon in the real world. A Facebook group was immediately created, to share experience, rare Pokemon spawn locations, and general discussion about the game.A couple of days passed, we run out of Pokeballs, and that's when we learned about the existence of Pokestops in the game, and the lack thereof in ours. As it turns out, the total number of Pokestops in the whole state was - zero.We contacted Niantic, only to get the automized response of how there's nothing they can do at the moment.Few turned to spoofing, but the majority of players had no other choice but to quit. And slowly, Pokemon Go died down in the state, as it does in the rest of the world, but for a very particular reason.However, some players have been "fortunate" enough to go abroad for studies or for work, and a few players have managed to reach level 40 somewhere else. So when Pokestop submissions went live in India, the second most populated country in the world, what many has perceived to be a mistake, has turned out to be a blessing for our state.By summer of this year, our first ever pokestop appeared, closely followed by two more. Posts are made to the Facebook group, which had been practically dead for 2+ years, and players started returning. A small group of players played Mudkip community day with the three pokestops we have.Then more stops slowly started appearing, with some turning to gyms. By the time of Entei Raid Day, we had to split into two lobbies to hit all the gyms we had back then, that's right all three of them!And here's a random photo of the largest group of players gathered together at the sweet spot between two lured pokestops during Ralts Community Day.Currently, the player base keeps growing along with the number of stops. Now we're sitting at some 40 odd combined stops+gyms, and the newly created WhatsApp group has close to 200 members as of now.And we're just getting started!TL;DR: Pokemon Go immediately died upon release in our state due to the absence of Pokestops. Now thanks to Pokestop submissions, we are back and growing! via /r/pokemongo https://ift.tt/2KBxLF1