I have quite a few European friends on social media and they always seem perplexed whenever racial tensions flare up in the USA. Some even have openly asked "why do Americans find it so hard not to be racist? It's not that hard."
I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist, just not necessarily against people of African descent. In the case of Europe, I usually point to the Roma as an area where Europeans tend to be a bit racist. I had no idea there were huge Roma ghettos in Bulgaria, but I knew of some Roma communities when I lived in Rome, Italy. And without fail, countless Italians warned me to steer clear of the Roma because "they are all liars and thieves"...
In Bulgaria, Gypsies are viewed as a huge problem and people are often openly racist against them, even on national TV. The stereotype is that the gypsies will steal whatever they can, trash and start fights and many other things. My grandma would hide her stuff if sees a gypsy, on the other hand there's a subset that she would adore. The subset, according to her, are the "tradesmen" gypsies and she would often buy services from them and would trust them. Also, the gypsies are quite often the musicians at the Turkish minority weddings. Bulgarians would also often complain that gypsies are making Bulgarians look bad in the EU.
I have relatives that live in a region with a lot of gypsies and I am endlessly fascinated by the success of their phone scams. As I visit them annually, I witnessed gypsies getting rich and building huge houses, collecting scam money from the local western-union branch almost on regular basis. Since they speak Turkish too, women call random Turkish numbers and ask men for money(claiming that they are coming to Turkey for them but an issue come up at the border) and their husbands collect the money from the western union. Sometimes it's very theatrical, the husband pretends to be the "evil Bulgarian police officer". I've seen it with my own eyes.
Just next to Bulgaria is Turkey and in this country the Gypsy image is drastically different. In Turkey gypsies are musicians, dancers and overall free soul people. Much less negative connotations overall. The exception is "Conolar" or "the Jonos", a clan in a major Turkish city. They are known for their temper and originalit. Here is a local fight, quite amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaNj4RQC4Ec
If I lived only in Bulgaria I might as well be a racist but I have seen enough to believe that the Bulgarians need to look in the mirror if they are looking someone to blame about the situation with gypsies. It doesn't have to be the way it is in Bulgaria.
Iâm Irish. We had a similar gypsy group in this country commonly referred to as Travellers and to say that there is utter hatred of them by the general populace is an understatement. The division between communities is extreme.
Itâs difficult to look past ones prejudices and Iâm very aware of my own in this situation. Itâs easy to hate on the entire community because of the appalling behaviour of a few and their insular nature as a community.
Of course itâs far more complex than the surface reveals and there are huge issues around education, inclusion, and integration.
This reminds me of the so-called City of the Dead[1] in Cairo.
It's an ancient cemetery which has basically turned in to a giant slum, with poverty-stricken people living among the ancient tombs.
There are a number of interesting videos on youtube about it, such as [2], [3], and [4], but it's the first of these that I found most fascinating, because not only did it show and talk about the City of the Dead, it also shows Zabbaleen.[5]
Zabbaleen is much like Stolipinovo, with people living among mountains of garbage.
The people who live there grow up there and are traditionally tasked with dealing with the garbage, which is shipped in to the neighborhood for them to live amongst.
It's clearly a miserable, nightmarish life.
As the narrator in the video says at about 9 minutes in, "I don't care how essential what they do is for Cairo. Cairo needs to get its shit together.. it's not ok."
I highly recommend watching this video[2]. The part on Zabaleen starts around 4'48".
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Dead_%28Cairo%29
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8KiBycJi9I
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeystshWL2I
>"The thing is, for the most part, travel writing is based upon deception. Corporate writers are dependent upon their publisher satiating the requirements and bias of their masters, and not upsetting the bill-paying advertisers. Only the most positive and flowery destination reviews will make it through to print. Many travel bloggers, despite having built a truly independent outlet to express their own honesty and creativity, forsake that opportunity and instead accept the comparative crumbs of âsponsorshipâ, exchanging their little slice of the internet for free travel and accommodation, publishing questionable articles more curious for their omissions than their inclusions."
>"And, personally, honestly, Iâm actually deceiving you right here on this page. It canât be helped. No set of photos, nor a thousand or so words, gathered over the course of a single day in Stolipinovo, could possibly begin to tell the whole story."
What a great summary. What great photos. This whole post was a wonderful bit of travel journalism. Thanks for sharing.
I ask myself quite genuinely if under the same circumstances I would live like that. It's really very hard to imagine that I or anyone I know would just accept living in trash like that. We would surely all agree to get some shovels and at least clean up the sidewalk in front of our house...right? What stops them from doing that? It seems like a choice.
> However, it was mostly smiles, laughter, and happy people. Indeed, the locals were actually dancing in the streets, to the sounds of multiple sound systems blasting music around the âhood. Invitations into homes and yards were being extended, food and drinks were constantly being offered.
Reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAgPnsaxdsk
If you found this article interesting, watch "Black cat, white cat"[0], by Emir Kusturica [1].
Nice to see them being portrayed as friendly and in a somewhat positive light. Unfortunately, this is one of the most unfairly treated ethnic groups in Europe - the prejudice runs high even amongst people with generally progressive views - and I have to object to this headline's labelling of the area. I hope that in the coming years that would be treated as a racial slur.
Wonderful photos. It's become a stereotype that Roma are all about emotions, sadness and hapiness at the same time, but the photos show it remarkably well. I agree with him -- it's simple, nobody should live like that. But in reality it's complicated because a lot of people in that part of the world have it hard. It's difficult to accept that somebody may have it even harder, and simply cannot change much on their own. Even if they try, they are struck down by systemic racism. And if they don't try, they confirm the stereotypes. And on the other hand the empathy is mostly academic and limited to watching photos like these. Once you're directly exposed to something like this, it's easy to look the other way because individuals are also products of their environment, and the environment is tough.
The situation of Roma is always a good counter example to the statement "no racism in Europe". Perhaps there was never official segregation, but there is almost always implicit segregation. They can ride the bus, but more intimate relationships between the Roma and non-Roma population are rare. True friendships, marriages etc. So it's not Mississippi of the 50's, but there's also been little progress in the last decades. Which is a pity because IMHO there is no quick fix, only slowly changing what is considered to be normal.
I was bored and raised In Thessaloniki, Greece where thereâs a big community of Roma but also itâs a common understanding that lots of them from Bulgaria are constantly driving to Greece.
In the community that I grew (Evosmos, West Thessaloniki) there were many of them. Iâve met a few that were integrated in the community, managed to finish school etc.
But their culture is just nothing about that. Women in dirty clothes carrying a trolley all day and going through garbage cans collecting dumps. Kids 5,6,7 years old with no shoes and no clothes on are walking around main streets At noon sneaking into stores and stealing whatever they can. Their teenagers are bullying everyone they can when they go out for no reason. They are deep into the drugs and the guns game. Police are always on them but there isnât much they can do but to isolate them in further areas outside the city.
Iâve seen all those things and they arenât pretty.
From all the posts in this thread, I wonder if there is a positive example of integration of Roma anywhere in Europe that other Europeans might look to. Croatia, country where I'm from has it's own share of problems with Roma and the levels of integration vary.
One of the issues I is the social welfare state and the underlying social contracts it is based upon that are taken advantage of by Roma. There is an incentive for Roma communities to stay the same because of that as minimum social welfare check, child support and similar handouts help provide for a life based on large communities.
In order to make any progress, a country should start by recognizing that in order to help Roma people and brake the cycle, special laws will be needed. In order to be smart about it, it should be done like Denmark did it with it's ghetto laws where they target an area (not ethnicity) and implement special restrictions, tougher laws, tougher punishment but at the same time focus more on providing primary and secondary education, working with families and so on.
You can go on google maps and judge for yourself:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.1589047,24.785939,3a,75y,202...
You can compare to other areas of the city:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.1589047,24.785939,3a,75y,202...
I think racial tension came down a lot the last 10 years, and the reason is that quite a few Roma work in Western Europe. For the ones in Stolipinovo I believe the prime destination is Dortmund. FWF I think the EU helped diffuse the tension by allowing increased mobility of both Roma and poor Bulgarians. I think the Roma neighbourhoods were much worse around the turn of the century and the politics were much more aggressive towards the Roma - I remember the Attack party being really popular back then.
I think it has been slow, but nowadays it is not as acceptable as once was to publish bluntly racist texts like this example from a prominent BG journalist in 2012:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=bg&tl=en&u=https:/...
In 2018, the same guy got a lifetime achievement award from the union of BG journalists.
I heartily recommend the documentary Pretty Dyana, which follows a Roma community in Belgrade.
Yup, what you can see from Google Street View looks no better:
"However, it was mostly smiles, laughter, and happy people. Indeed, the locals were actually dancing in the streets, to the sounds of multiple sound systems blasting music around the âhood. Invitations into homes and yards were being extended, food and drinks were constantly being offered.
That never happens when I stroll through a wealthy neighbourhood."
At least a bit of encouragement.
As a Spaniard, I am very aware of this issue. There are way too many people in this thread just labeling southern and east europeans as racist, as if this explained everything. I also find that comparing this to the racial problems in the US is off the mark.
There are millions of spaniards who really support government programs to integrate our large gypsee population (no one here, including the gitanos themselves, call them Roma; their dialect is known as romanĂ, though).
There are also millions of Spaniards who have written them off as a hopeless basket case.
Both groups have a point.
As many people here have pointed out, many gypsees have integrated in mainstream society, and in many cases one would struggle to identify them as such. These have no trouble working in restaurants, or getting any other job for that matter.
But gypsees have a very proud culture, and those who behave like payos (which is how they call non-gypsees) get mocked, and all but banished by their own kin. This is compounded by the sad fact that it is undeniable that those that do cross over would do better if they hide their origins from the mainstream. And this culture is radically different, not only from mainsteam spanish culture, but western culture in general.
The main issue with traditional gypsee culture, and the biggest hurdle for integration, is school education. The spanish state has spent millions over many decades on this, with mixed success.
What follows is just an anecdote, albeit not an isolated one, that I belive highlights the challenges. My mum has a very close friend who is a school teacher. Several years ago this friend, an idealist, volunteered to teach at an area with a very large gypsee population. The first and largest problem was to get the gypsee families to send their kids to school to begin with. The best they managed was to get them to cram a bunch of kids in a taxi, which the teachers, who in Spain are not well paid, would pay out of their own pockets. The kids, 5 year olds, swore like drunken sailors. Good luck teaching manners. Their dads would leave porn running on the tv, to which the kids would be exposed from an early age, and candidly told the teachers. They would also tell how daddy beat mummy regularly, because this gypsee culture is very macho. One boy said his dad was very good. He would pretend to beat his mum, who would scream, so that neighbours would know everything was alright in the family. My mums friend couldn't stand all this after a year and begged for a transfer. When they were relocated by the government from the shanty to new appartments, they yanked out all the fittings and furniture, and sold it all for scrap.
Me, I was instinctively terrified of them as a kid growing up in Spain. You saw gypsees, you ran. We have all been mugged and bullied by them. As you grow up, you become aware of the social problems, and also end up talking to some, and yes, many are very nice and friendly. But you also hear from them how their own environment makes it very hard to, say, take their education seriously.
My point is, it is too easy to slap the racist adjective without making an effort to understand. There is racism for sure, but there is also enormous cultural resistance from the gypsees, which makes many to abandon hope, on both sides.
My main gripe when it comes to comparing this to the racial problem in US is that no one brought the gypsees to Europe, they came of their own accord, and nowhere were they enslaved, AFAIK, at least not at scale, maybe only by the nazis.
They still keep coming to Spain, mostly from Romania. And, guess what? The spanish gypsees hate the romanian gypsees. In Spain, the gypsee women often beg. One day, sitting at a terrace, my mum gave one a coin, as she often does. The woman warned my mum, bitterly complaining about the romanian gypsee women. "We just beg, they will steal your handbag".
â...two local Bulgarian girls roped into providing translation duties...â
Did the author get two teenage girls or women to help with translation?
If you found this interesting I could recommend the book "Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey" by Isabel Fonseca:
Just yesterday stumbled upon this YouTube video of a guy visiting a similar place in Slovakia called Lunik IX https://youtu.be/cG4aYsvgchA
Have you heard of LunĂk IX, the largest gypsy ghetto/district in Slovakia?
I'm from Bulgaria. I doubt that the Government really wants gypsies to become a functional part of society because they're so easy to buy. Gypsies win elections and that's it. There are some nice people which decide to educate themselves though. Definitely not enough to change the general opinion towards the ethnic group.
This looks a lot like the camps they set up when they come to Sweden to beg as well. Take the camp in Malmö called SorgenfrilÀgret for instance. From empty industrial lot to illegally occupied shanty town full of trash: https://victorpressfeldt.com/2015/11/01/lagret-pa-sorgenfri-...
In a TV news segment they showed a portable toilet that somebody had given them, and it was unusable because of how filthy it was. When asked why the people living there said it was because nobody came there to clean it for them.
Here's another camp outside of Stockholm. Again, why so much trash?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532716/The-rubbish...
As a Bulgarian I have a couple of interesting stories surrounding gypsies. Some more pleasant than others, but I'll try to be short.
My grandparents built a house near the Black Sea when I was a child and in spring and summer they've always hired a gypsy family from the nearby town to help us in the garden. They were hard workers and my grandparents treated them fairly and paid them fairly. Besides getting paid for their work we also gifted them some unused TV's, radios, bicycles and some other stuff throughout the years. The family head and his wife were on the older side and both had finished high school (under communism). Their 5 or 6 children however have not... They had finished only the mandatory 8 years at school and dropped out afterwards. They were really upset about the fact, but they couldn't control their children it seems. Other people from their gypsy community didn't really support them it looks like and it seemed easier to work in sanitation or other jobs where education was not important. Their daughter got married off to someone and soon grandchildren came into the picture as well. Their sons also moved away. I haven't seen them in many years now. Hope they're well. I've always respected them as people, but most of them are not like that family. They don't want to be integrated.
I've been in a couple of street fights throughout the years (never the instigator). One of them was with a gypsy who wanted to steal my watch. I was in high school at the time and by this point training in MA for 4-5 years. I was going home from school and it was dark because most high schools in Bulgaria divide the semesters in two timetables morning and afternoon (7:30-13:30, 13:00 - 19:15 the times also depend how many subjects you have that day). It was the first semester for me during autumn/winter and it was the afternoon timetable 13:00 to 19:15. So it was after 19 and it was already dark outside. I was walking on the sidewalk and there weren't a lot of cars passing by. I saw a person walking against me in the distance but didn't think any of it until he got closer and I saw he was a gypsy. The moment I saw his complexion I was on high alert. This is an instinct that most Bulgarians will understand in this situation. Alone, it's dark and there's a gypsy in front of you. We walk closer and closer to each other and I see that he looked at my watch. He stops me and asks me for some change and I say I don't have anything. The actual combat situation played out very fast. He very quickly grabbed my left hand. I instinctively punched with my right hand straight to his face and caught him on the chin, he wobbled back and let go of my left hand then I kicked somewhere around his waist groin area and he crumbled down. After that I started running and ran all the way home. He didn't try to follow me. By that point he probably thought it was more trouble than worth or was afraid of being caught. I don't know. Another friend years later was in a similar situation, they wanted his watch. My friend lost the watch and got a broken tooth in the ordeal :/
It's so easy to speak of something one has only a superficial understanding of.
If one really wants to get a better understanding go and try to live like a normal person in the vicinity of their community. Pose as a foreigner or journalist and they'll tell you how much they have to endure. Pose as a neighbour minding your own business and you'll see what happens :)) I guess this will be an amazing article.
The gypsies are the master of social engineering and fake propaganda. Rroma is the new branding put forward after everyone agreese the word gypsy carries too much of a bad meaning. It's curious people don't ask themselves why the word American is a good word and the word gypsy is a bad word.
It's so easy to judge from the outside the Bulgarians as racists because of the self preservation mechanisms they set in place to live together with gypsies. Surely if one does the math to gauge the money that were spent by a tiny country to integrate the gypsy communities for more than 5 decades will exceed by multiple orders of magnitude the investment the western or US governments in social integration and justice. The same experiment can be easily replicated in any Eastern European country that still has large communities of gypsies.
Might be worth pointing out that those apartment buildings are everywhere in the ex-communist block. In various states of (dis)repair. I think they were called "comfort III" (with I being the best).
They're as bad as they look even when maintained.
I think it would be impossible to have a productive discussion about Roma in an American website.
Post author here.
Stolipinovo is one of several European Roma communities that I have visited over the years (several times now), and it's the largest that I'm aware of. The photos in the post are representative and true of how the area actually is, and I'm happy to answer any questions (forewarning, I'm not an expert).
If I were to emphasize any one take-away - it's the friendliness I experienced from the locals. Sounds cliched, but look at reality - I was taking photos in a place where I don't particularly belong (it's kind of my hobby since "retiring" from tech), and you may assume that a poverty-stricken, much maligned group of people would be wary of "outsiders".
Indeed, the exact opposite was the case.
edit: with regards to racism, a story I was told in the same city is perhaps the best example of just how far Bulgaria (in this example) has to climb. I asked a local Bulgarian friend why I didn't see Roma working at the local restaurants. He said that would be really bad for the business - to have a Gypsy waiter, or cashier, or in any "public facing" role. I voiced my assumption that perhaps they were working back-of-house, in the kitchen. He said they weren't - if the public found out a Gypsy was working in the kitchen, most people would never dine at that restaurant.