The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The Largest Gypsy Ghetto in Europe – Stolipinovo, Bulgaria (2016)

yomadic.com

170 pointssiberianbear226 comments

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.

You use the word "gypsy" a lot. The Roma I've met consider it very offensive, almost n-word level offensive. Is that not the case in Europe?

Not that I have encountered. Perhaps all of the Gypsy/Roma I have spoken with are too polite to let me know otherwise.

Here in Czechia many use the 'vulgar' variant (cikán) themselves. I wouldn't use it in my writing though.

It's "циганин" (tsiganin, or ciganin) in Bulgaria. But this is now deemed offensive, hence roma.

In Brazil (which has a sizeable Romani population, and had two Romani presidents), the direct translation of this, "Cigano", is still the one officially used.

I didn’t know that Brazil had two presidents with Romani origin. According to Wikipedia they are Juscelino Kubitscheck and Washington Luís.

Interestingly, many variants of that word in different European languages. See section Exonyms in:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people

It’s complicated. Ultimately it’s rude to refer to anyone by their skin colour, ethnicity or racial “group”. There are almost no situations where it’s appropriate.

In the US and certain upper-middle class echelons of other Western nations, maybe.

Outside of that bubble, though, it ranges from neutral to positive to acknowledge a person's ethnicity.

This is how I understand the world to be too

Lol at the nominative determinism!

I didn't even realise. That's hilarious!

Although at the NGO level activists claim that "Roma" should be used instead of "gypsy", it is very common when talking to Balkan Roma to be corrected by them: “Don’t call us Roma, we’re <locally used exonym equivalent to ‘gypsies’>". Obviously their own endonym is Rom, plural Roma, but they sometimes bristle at outsiders using it.

I have the impression those being better off, with (somewhat) higher social status, education being better connected to the majority population find "Gypsy" to be derogatory.

But once I met a poor family referring to themselves this way, so a bit perplexed and curious I rather asked them directly if they consider themselves being Roma or Gypsy... only to get an ambiguous answer.

Edit: I met that family in the eastern Slovakia.

It depends. Sometimes, older people will call themselves "Gypsy" and may even correct you if you call them "Roma". But younger people have been taught that "Gypsy" is an offense, so they will get offended if you use the word.

Incredible photos and a great story. Thanks for putting this together. People forget all too easily how everyone in this world is trying to live their best life with the resources they have. That becomes exponentially more difficult when someone treats you as less of a person for whatever delusional reasons they rationalize in their minds.

Thanks, my pleasure.

Thank you for your article. I now know more than about my country than before. We have similar ghetto in my home city Burgas, but due to my grand-father working in the area, and my mom too - never felt that much threatened.

How does it compare to Luník IX?

I haven't visited - but Stolipinovo is much larger.

As a long-time "hobby" photographer of street and neighborhood life in certain parts of Mexico, I'm curious, how did you build rapport with the locals for the sake of your photography, and that friendly acceptance. I'd love to hear any advice or observations you have.

Just be kind, confident, honest, and friendly. As with most things in life - practice practice practice.

Of course, but were you frequently asked why you were taking photos? In your case, what explanation would you give? Wonderful shots by the way, and thank you for your reply.

Thanks for the compliment! Yes, I was asked several times that day what I was doing. My explanation was "I'm just taking photos". Lame, but it works if you show a little smile.

Exactly what I've done so many times! Good to know it works just fine in other contexts.

Be a white English-speaking foreigner, and spend money.

You wrestled with a screaming guy trying to rip the camera out of your hands.

A common travel cliche is "99% of people are friendly to you". That's a good thing, but I want to know what the 1% and 0.1% are likely do to you.

Mostly peaceful

The first thing that stands out to me is the choice of the word "gypsy". While many Roma are perfectly fine with it and even use it themselves, there are also many who find the word offensive and it has historically been used as a racial slur. Why not drop the word alltogether and fall back to the (at least to my understanding) neutral "roma"?

In all honestly many people in North America would not know who the Roma are but would know what group you are talking about when you say gypsy.

Such a silly choice. If some people really hate a group won't the new self designated word become a racial slur too? What then?

You get what is commonly known as the "euphemism cycle", or the "euphemism treadmill": https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087798

Gypsy was always a slur. It's not a case of a euphemism treadmill.

Since you sounds honest and not sarcastic, may I take this opportunity to ask you what mechanism do you believe will help improving the actual situation once the word have been successfully changed (assuming for the sake of discussion that the word can be effectively changed) ? I have always been intrigued by the power of words.

I want to echo what chimen said, with a bit of nuance. There is discrimination, real and pretty strong. But on the other hand it's rational to discriminate - if a group of traditionally dressed roma is entering a shop, you'd better bet the security guard will follow their every step without even bothering to be subtle, and that he's doing this from experience. And walking around in roma neighborhoods as a foreigner is a _very_ chancy activity. Nobody local will even cry for you if you get robbed.

The main reason for this state of affairs is roma's traditional reliance on internal law and complete disregard for outsiders and their laws. Coupled with this is a tendency to just not apply morality to whatever you do to outsiders. This makes it very very hard to change their ways from outside - even 40 years of communism barely made a dent. Best strategy I know of is to make sure each individual has full protection of the host nation's laws and support mechanisms, and that they know it. This makes it possible for them to disregard internal laws with less fear of being ostracized. It's a slow strategy, but I know of none quicker.

And to end on a brighter note, in the next elections I'll be voting for an independent, who is the newest rising star of local politics. He's a gypsy.

I'm not a local, but wouldn't eat at a restaurant if it was staffed by people from that specific neighborhood documented in the submitted web page. That's regardless of their ethnic background: they could be milk-white Bulgarians.

I would expect them to show up in dirty clothes, and not having bathed in months, and neglect to follow basic hygiene like washing their hands. They would likely perpetrate actions like tasting food and putting the same utensil back into the pot, completely lacking the inhibition of refraining from doing whatever comes naturally.

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"...

As a rule everyone is quick to point out the failings of others, but be blind to their own. Such is the nature of the world.

I believe also that Roma people in the US are successfully integrated and do not live in ghettos or outskirts.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0494831/

Documentary above also really nicely shows the microculture of these people

The Roma are well integrated in the US? I saw a TV show where that was clearly not the case, there was a community where everybody was supposed to get married inside their own community. I don't think that is integration.

Ofcourse I don't know how big this group was, relative to all Roma people in the US. This was some reality marriage show, I think on TLC or something. (yes, my then-girlfriend watched this :) ).

Well they are just as well integrated as the Jewish population or the Amish. Small communities where everyone married back into the faith is the only way to keep a small ethnic group consistent.

It's probably not a good idea to draw conclusions about an entire culture based on what you saw on a single episode of a reality TV show.

I know exactly what you mean, I'm european and it bothers me too.

From my perspective the United States is amazing because a lot of "white" people who stick together are actually from different parts of Europe who might not have always been fond of each other.

This is all conjecture but as a european I feel like I can easier spot where a european is from based on their appearance, while white americans don't see that in each other.

Similarly black americans are from wildly different parts of Africa who might have been at war during some time. But in the US they're all black americans.

I find this very fascinating, which shows how much more divided we are here and definitely prejudiced.

> I feel like I can easier spot where a european is from

That's because you have seen italians speaking and acting italian, romanians speaking romanian etc. Americans see americans speaking american

That's what my American friends say, but it's easy to tell, for example, Albanians and Greeks apart, or Englishpeople and Spaniards.

It is similar for a lot of Asian populations as well. I think it is mostly just due to how much exposure you have had to the various populations where you can notice the small differences that tend to make a group distinct. Most Americans do not interact with enough European sub-groups to distinguish between them, while most Europeans I have run into tend to lump east Asians into a single group while I can easily distinguish between London tourists who are Chinese, Korean, and Japanese just from having spent a couple of decades on the west coast of the US. When you are surrounded by different groups you tend to pick up on the subtle clues.

Yes, exactly. I can usually distinguish between Japanese/Chinese/Korean just by realizing there are differences and noticing, but most other people just think "Asian" (or, even worse in my country, "Chinese").

> I can usually distinguish between Japanese/Chinese/Korean just by realizing there are differences and noticing, but most other people just think "Asian" (or, even worse in my country, "Chinese").

Compare the advice a Chinese teacher in Shanghai gave my class when someone asked about telling whether someone was Japanese or Chinese: "It's easy. Japanese people wear much nicer clothes."

I agree that many Europeans are racist towards Roma and the other gypsy peoples. Much of what they say will be pure nonsense (e.g., they are stupid, not fit for work, etc), but other common statements you might hear also have some truth to them. For example, "they all steal" is of course a gross simplification, as many Roma are well integrated and live a regular life. However, if you are surrounded by a group of people clearly discernible as gypsies (women in long robes, etc) there is a high likelihood you're in trouble.

> Roma and the other gypsy peoples

I thought gypsy was the exonym for the Roma(ni) people. Are there other "gypsy" peoples?

Irish Travellers are sometimes called gypsies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers

Travellers could also be considered gypsies. They are mainly in Ireland and England and are regarded similarly.

Part of the problem is that a nomadic lifestyle just doesn't gel with modern society so they don't integrate at all. For the same reason it's hard for these people to find work and a subset do often turn to crime.

Culturally they also have very conservative and often misogynistic views which acts as another barrier to integration.

In ways it is similar to the issues with Islamic migrants integrating into European society. It's too simplistic to just label it as racism and be done with it (not to say there isn't racism). There are real issues.

> Travellers could also be considered gypsies

Yes I heard people use that label for all nomadic minorities. I wonder if it's improper use of the word.

Well, in UK it seems that is either Gypsy or Irish Traveller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers#/media/File:P...

> issues with Islamic migrants integrating into European society.

As an American this always baffles me.

Interestingly, English and Irish travelers are unrelated to mainland gypsies: they are mostly of the same ancestry as regular English and Irish, they just live different lifestyle on the edge of society. On the other hand, most mainland gypsies are actually their own ethnicity with their own separate genetic ancestry.

My "shallow" understanding is that "gypsy" seemed to be related to "egyptian", because of their looks. Others point to 13th-14th century ottoman invasion bringing troops from South Asia that were forced to move out from there, and used them as supporting troops later settling in Europe.

Hell if I know. I'm bulgarian, and you can imagine how this was portrayed to me, by parents, school, friends, etc. This article actually opened my eyes. Not that I didn't know how it looked, but how would it feel...

Yes, the word "gypsy" comes from "Egypt". It's not immediately obvious why the term was applied to the gypsies.

We know with certainty that the gypsies came from India, though we don't know the details.

Came here expecting to find this, because THIS is in fact what happens in every online discussion of Roma I see, not some other "pure nonsense", but just this.

In America, if people say "The things people say about Black people are a gross simplification HOWEVER", it's usually something really racist that's about to follow. Say, "Sure many Black people are fine, but if you find yourself surrounded by Black people in the Inner City, you are in danger." I mean, I dunno.

Being surrounded by any one group in a foreign place could be a bit alarming, whether these are Roma in Bulgaria, Blacks in inner cities, or Whites in some rural town, or Arabs in Marseille.

The reality is that people are not wrong when they act as if Black people in the U.S. are more likely to commit violent crimes. Black people are ~20% of the population, but commit ~55% of the murders, making for a per capita murder offense rate among Black Americans that is ~5x (yes, 500%) of the rate for the remainder.

That said, people pay way too much attention to murder and violent crime in public discourse and in their private lives for the most part. Sure, Black people may murder at 5x the rate of non-Black people, but murder is really, really rare. What about we worry about, I dunno, diabetes? Education? Population growth? Climate change?

> a bit racist

It's more than a bit. It's institutionalised and pervasive racism.

One big difference from the US is that Eastern-Europeans don't even acknowledge there is any racism against gypsies so it's not even part of the public discourse. Much like how fish don't realise they're surrounded by water, so do Eastern Europeans not acknowledge that they live in a racist society. The tensions flaring up in the US are partly caused by the fact that the opressed category is trying to get equal footing in society. If gypsies were to start talking about how they should be treated equally, you can bet there would be a backlash from a big part of society.

For comparison, look at how the US treated race relations 100 years ago. (To be clear, I'm not saying Eastern-European countries are backwards or more primitive just because they can be compared to the US in the past; it's just a helpful way to understand the context.)

Source: I'm originally from an Eastern European country and only realised the racism in Eastern Europe once I lived abroad for multiple years and drew parallels with the highly mediatised US racial tensions.

Let's be honest, 90% of E. European were oppressed/repressed themselves. Unless you were in the 5% communist party elite, your life under communism was full of oppression everywhere.

'Race Relation' are a luxury of wealthier western countries. When you are struggling for food/heat/shelter yourself, it is hard to worry about other's problems.

I think it will take at least one more generation for things to slowly change.

I think people always acknowledged it, but it's just that the majority was okay with it. Here's what the opposition said about the Czechoslovak law number 117 from 1927 that created a "gypsy ID card" for everyone older than 14 (ID with all the fingerprints, photo, list of kin, etc):

"We are not satisfied with the fact that one nation keeps the remnants of another from birth to death under police surveillance, we know that the vast majority of the oppressed nation is innocent and irresponsible for the actions of their anti-social minority, whose actions are justified by the current social order ... that mud would be slung on the rest of the nomadic nation and that it be made lawless in such a way that all human rights, which, even according to this constitution, belong to every human being, are taken away from this nation only because its members are dark-skinned. "

more details here: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&u=https:/...

> I'm originally from an Eastern European country and only realised the racism in Eastern Europe once I lived abroad for multiple years and drew parallels with the highly mediatised US racial tensions.

I've been having exactly(!) the same "only after I lived abroad" experience.

> if you are surrounded by a group …

It really depends. I've been in that situation in open air markets, at fairs etc and no, definitely not in trouble. Walk into a ghetto? Maybe.

When I was growing up in New England in the 1970's, children commonly used the term "gyp" / "gyped" as a slang version of "cheat" / "cheated".

It's only as an adult that I realized this was probably a racial or cultural slur.

Same here in Australia regarding the "gypped" expression. I don't think there are any Roma communities here but the expression travelled down.

In Naples they set their ghetto alight in 2008. In Eastern Europe their ghettos are bulldozed over whenever real estate interests take priority. In France they were deported to their home countries and their ghettos dismantled, although I've also heard of succesful integration stories on RFI.

Once Eastern Europeans of other ethnicities are no longer willing to do migrant work, Western farms and slaughterhouses shall run out of options and employ Roma migrant workers. This is already happening.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/eyes-wid...

Western Europeans also like to pretend those things only happen elsewhere in Europe.

In Denmark they're committing a mass crime against humanity in a cultural cleansing against their Muslim minority, a vicious fascist action, and nobody cares to stop it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/europe/denmark-immi... (https://archive.is/Um7tE)

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/3/17525960/denmark-children...

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/01/15/denmarks-ghett...

It is definitely common in today's world, that alone is not enough to conclude the people are "naturally" xenophobic or racist, that it is "natural".

On the contrary I think both scientific evidence and theory point strongly to the fact that all humans are racist. In group/out group is baked in to our genes. None of that makes it right, of course. But pretending we are not all prone to racism is not useful

“Racism” is the wrong word for it because “race” is a modern concept. Certainly prejudice and xenophobia are natural and pervasive human qualities, but “race” per se doesn’t exist before 1492, so there was no “racism” just lots of particular prejudices (anti-Semitism and anti-Samaritanism, for example).

This is a really important point.

On the larger point, it's possible xenophobia is "natural", but I think it pays to be very cautious about what is "natural" or not among humans, what even that means. So so much is our social context. We can look at what social contexts (re)produce xenophobia and which don't without even having to decide what is "natural" though.

Ask all those smug Europeans how they treat their Roma or even the Eastern European expats.

Brexit was one big middle finger to the Polish diaspora.

Unless you live next to them, you should not judge what others (who have lived next to them) say

A fellow American friend of mine visited Europe with his child's soccer team about 4 years ago. During a match in Spain, people were yelling racist obscenities at one of the 12 year old American soccer players who is black. I was pretty surprised, having believed Europe was more enlightened than the US. Was that just a fluke occurrence? Is that something common at children's soccer games?

> I was pretty surprised, having believed Europe was more enlightened than the US.

As rule of thumb the bigger the distance from the Blue Banana the less enlightenment you encounter. Especially in the eastern and southern direction.

> 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." ... And without fail, countless Italians warned me to steer clear of the Roma because "they are all liars and thieves"...

Many of the replies to your comment are from Europeans defending their prejudice likewise as "oh but you don't understand, in Europe it's different because you may be surrounded by a gang of people that are clearly gypsy and they rob you, so it's easy to see why!".

But that's the exact same thing with X race in Y country. Such as blacks in America. It's a broad brush stroke based on an experience or group of experiences that eventually paints the whole race that way.

My friend did some malaria research in Myanmar/Burma. He found that the Burmese would be quite explicit in their anti-Rohingya prejudice. He’d hear people say things like “Oh, they’re basically dogs and not people” and not realize that it’s rude to be so openly prejudiced in US culture. He wasn’t surprised when the genocide started after he left.

You can find these things in basically every country, sadly.

"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 ..."

I think Roma are the least interesting example of this.

In 2020 I had the pleasure of reading the Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset's Magnum Opus _Kristin Lavransdatter_.

For those that don't know, _Kristin Lavransdatter_ is the Norwegian _Anna Karenina_ ... but longer. Recommended.

In the book, among other things, it describes that Norwegians in the fourteenth century thought that Finnish people were basically sub-humans. They were treated like animals and could be killed (!) without legal ramification.

Let that sink in for a bit ...

Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Handt Hanson considered Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Eli Halla to not even be a human being.

I think there may be some deep conclusions to make about the nature of division and difference in human societies. Could it be that there will never not be an out-group ?

It's always been easy to justify racism against people that don't speak your language. That's a hell of an outgroup.

They are ignorant of their history and don’t understand that a lot of work had to be done in terms of education, acceptance and making peace to make that possible.

Europeans spent centuries coming up with creative ways to kill each other in the name of god, country or race, and was able to move on to better things only after having been on the precipice of annihilation.

The American condition shouldn’t be whitewashed and is a story that is still evolving. But people are people, and the stories of America or Europe or some subdivision are more about people than country.

I would go so far as saying people are born racist and can only grow out of it.

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.

I think the root of all that goes way back. I've lived in Bulgaria for most of my life(with the exception of around 4-5 years during university). Back in the day when I was a kid and teenager(think 90's and early 2000's) gypsies were a big problem. I remember one summer when everyone went away for a holiday and there was just me and my mum in a 300 meter radius for around two weeks. A house was getting robbed every night during those two weeks. And we are talking pretty much the center of the capital.

That said, at some point(not sure when or how) that all changed. Now in the day-to-day life, gypsies cause no harm whatsoever. They are a minority and as such I have very little interaction with them but in the few instances I've had, they've always been very warm and kind and the once I've worked with have been incredibly hard working and devoted.

But even though I see a huge improvement, we need to look back a bit to see the root cause: I had the chance to meet some of my grand-grand parents and they all had roma friends when they were young in the early 20-th century. However there have been huge political campaigns against them(both socially and economically) between 1944 and 1989(even though those were flowered up as "integration" programs). I think what we see now is one of the many scars the regime left behind.

There is a lot of "racism" talk on this thread, but criminal Roma gangs are an undeniable fact in Europe as they are regularly dismantled by the police. One cannot defend the exploitation of the poor, young kids, the disabled, the old, sent to western Europe and forced into begging, stealing or mugging locals and excuse that with "cultural relativism".

These ones live in shanty towns, do not send their young children to school even in places where school is mandatory under 15 thus perpetuate the cycle of illiteracy. Is this what educated people here are defending? really? This kids aren't even given a chance to succeed.

They have a tight sense of community and most of them never assimilate wherever they go and barely make effort to speak the local language. This isn't a cliché or a stereotype, that's the reality of these gangs. There is next to 500 Roma slums around Paris, and we're talking about people that have for EU citizenship. One cannot blame that situation on "racism", this is 100% due to criminal behaviour and gangs trafficking vulnerable people.

Yes, all Roma aren't like this, a lot of them work tough jobs in agriculture or construction. But criminal Roma networks are a reality nobody can deny.

If it was about race, how do you explain the roma situation in Turkey? It's the same people but drastically different engagement in the public life.

The gangs, the trash, the dirt, the kids out of school - all real things as photographed and descrbed by the author of the article.

The more likely explanation is that the Bulgarians screwed up with the policy and the Turks got something right.

> The more likely explanation is that the Bulgarians screwed up with the policy and the Turks got something right.

You're insinuating that Bulgaria enacted policies that forced Roma into a life of crime. You're also insinuating that all Europe enacted policies that forced Roma in Europe into crime since they behave likewise everywhere in Europe this specific group of gypsies goes which is a preposterous assertion.

There are other groups of gypsies, in France for instance which live there and do not have that criminal culture. So no, the problem isn't Bulgaria, or Romania, or France. The problem is criminal gangs that exploit their illiterate brothers and sisters, you can't put the onus on European states, not today.

Well, if it’s not about gypsies and policies but about criminal gangs then that’s the police not doing their job.

> Well, if it’s not about gypsies and policies but about criminal gangs then that’s the police not doing their job.

If parents don't send their children to school so they can have chance to a better life then the parents, thus their culture, is the issue, not the police, a culture that is essentially criminogenic because it encourages bad behaviour and segregation due to illiteracy.

It did actually (Bulgarian here). During communist regime, roma (gypsies) were segregated - taught in different schools, lived in different areas. When the communist regime fell, it was accepted that's how it is, and the situation did not improve. Just my view on the matter.

> But criminal Roma networks are a reality nobody can deny.

True, but that doesn't mean there is no racism. If anything, this would support the fact that racism exists, since conflict tends to make people think in terms of in-group/out-group.

A follow-up question is whether the racism is justified. An even more important question is whether the conlfict stems from a failure to integrate different cultures and whether taking deliberate steps to encourage integration would resolve these conflicts.

Btw, the same argument also comes up wrt racial tensions in the US: "Blacks are x% of the population, yet are involved in y% of crime" with y >> x.

Actually, I think his comment was a spot on:

> They have a tight sense of community and most of them never assimilate wherever they go and barely make effort to speak the local language.

This has been my impression as well. The Roma seem to first identify themselves as part of their community and only then, part of the common folk in the country they reside in. Many also follow some internal social group laws that are often totally illegal, e.g., bride market.

To answer your question, I believe there’s a strong mismatch in culture and I do not see a way to solve this problem with any possible social or state actions.

The problem, as it seems, will solve itself in the long term as the Roma population has a greater positive net increase compared to the non-Roma population in Eastern Europe. It seems in some decades from now, Eastern Europe will mostly be Roma populated. Is that good or bad, I honestly don’t know.

Some interesting figures reported by Reuters - https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/.... The year is 2009 but to me it seems valid for 2020, though population numbers may have doubled since then.

I don't think you have to "defend the exploitation of the poor..." to argue that the problem is these people are not being integrated into the social/government networks the rest of Europe benefits from. The criminal gangs fill a vacuum. Insularity results from centuries of maltreatment.

> but criminal Roma gangs are an undeniable fact in Europe

There are a plethora of criminal gangs that belong to other ethnicities and nationalities in Europe. Painting the whole ethnicity/nationality with the same brush is the textbook definition of racism even though we like to hide it behind "not all Roma are like this".

> These ones live in shanty towns, do not send their young children to school even in places where school is mandatory under 15 thus perpetuate the cycle of illiteracy. Is this what educated people here are defending? really? This kids aren't even given a chance to succeed.

Yes. Gypsies are very insular and keep their culture, but I feel like that is too convenient of an explanation that people are using. In my opinion governments should make a better attempt at integrating them into the education system. Literacy is key into helping them overcome the gadjo vs roma mentality and I don't think that people and communities do enough to overcome this problem.

I’m 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.

It’s difficult to look past ones prejudices and I’m very aware of my own in this situation. It’s easy to hate on the entire community because of the appalling behaviour of a few and their insular nature as a community.

Of course it’s 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

[4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYzKdf33AJg

[5] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabbaleen

The word "gypsy" seems to have roots in people from "Egypt" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people#Other_designatio... (Certainly don't want anyone from Egypt to feel offended, just pointing out the root of a word)

>"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 “sponsorship”, 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, I’m actually deceiving you right here on this page. It can’t 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.

I’ll confused. What has San Francisco got to do with this?

Lol, I a Baltimoron, also live amongst garbage. It’s what happens if you don’t pay for street sweepers.

Nothing stops them. It's their own choice. And the government literally pays them to not have to work and be able to live like this.

Not sure if it were the case here, but here in my country the slum would look like that because there is no organized garbage disposal in the neighborhood, so everyone is simply dumping their trash whenever convenient and burn them later. I mean, you could pick up a shovel and clean up the front of your house, but where would you throw those trash you just shoveled if there is no garbageman picking up trash every week? Chance that you'll just dump them across the street and burn it and the wind will pick up some bits of trash and spreading them again throughout the neighborhood, completing the cycle.

You perceive the sidewalk in front of your house as something that is related to you, and you know people in your culture would judge you if the sidewalk is dirty. But this is a cultural concept. You could also have a cultural concept that only things inside your house reflect on you, and the sidewalk is... just a random part of universe. Then there is no reason why you should go and clean up a random part of universe.

You probably don't feel that it is your duty to go and clean up garbage everywhere in your city. At some distance, it's simply not your problem anymore. This is the same, but the distance ends at the threshold of your house.

Any norm makes sense, internally, if you know that this is the norm others will use to judge you. Most people don't go beyond what is required of them.

> 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 ‘hood. 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].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cat,_White_Cat

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Kusturica

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.

I never met a Sinti or Roma, but many eastern europeans, and they all had nothing but hate for this group, based on stories of crime and theft.

Ticked me off a bit, since that was exactly the prejudice eastern europeans faced and face in western europe.

>Ticked me off a bit, since that was exactly the prejudice eastern europeans faced and face in western europe.

At least here in Spain that is because most of the Eastern Europeans we get are Roma. So people automatically assume Bulgarians or Romanians are all Roma and act like them.

> At least here in Spain that is because most of the Eastern Europeans we get are Roma.

While Roma might be highly visible to you because some beg in the streets or appear in crime reportage, Roma are still only a minority of the Eastern European immigrants in Spain. They are a minority even of the Balkan countries’ immigrants in Spain. You just don’t notice all those ethnic Romanians from Romania who don’t look particularly exotic, and who are quietly working hard in some industry outside the public eye (i.e. agriculture, or taking care of the elderly, or even the IT sector).

There used to be a time when ‘entrepreneurs’ were much more likely to travel abroad than law-abiding citizens for a combination of reasons and I imagine a similar combination makes only the worst of them travel and be seen outside of their usual places, giving a very bad rep to the wide group as a whole.

> I hope that in the coming years that would be treated as a racial slur.

It won't. Perhaps you should do some research and not try to object to or ban more language, as the term is not always used negatively. While some Romani are opposed to it, others use the term in a positive light to promote their culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Lore_Society

Many on social media today claim to be gypsies in a positive light (however, they're more claiming to adopt certain culture aspects they appreciate).

I do not think they would be friendly to any local Bulgarian that wandered into the neighbourhood.

Also "many children don’t attend school." is rather a problem, isn't it. And though I do not know much about Bulgaria, I doubt it's because of the money. I'd assume Bulgaria has free schools and probably social support for financially struggling kids.

There are so many different nations in Europe, some with their nation states, many without. However, Roma or Travellers seem to have the same poor opinion almost everywhere - which is not really shared with any other people. Maybe it is not that fair to picture Bulgarians as the only source of the bad situation in this neighbourhood. Isn't there a way for the community to organise anything, even some basic cleanup?

I didn't particularly care for the quote (from comments):

> I generally try to avoid Western Europe these days – along with most of the Western world, people their are (in general) just trying to convince themselves that the little bubble they exist in is all that matters.

A bit rich coming from an American, but anyway I do not understand what it that supposed to mean. I'd believe it's rather Western Europeans that try to care for the world as the whole, rather than do the least immediately necessary.

Post author here:

Note that the people that live in Stolipinovo are Bulgarian. I guess you meant to say "I do not think they would be friendly to any non-Roma Bulgarian". That's an assumption that (from experience) is incorrect.

Also, I'm not American, but I get that a lot.

"non-Roma Bulgarian"

are you quite sure they self-identify as Bulgarian? My experience from a different country is a different one.

> Note that the people that live in Stolipinovo are Bulgarian.

Bulgarian (Greek, Macedonian, Hungarian. or other nationalities with nation-states) has two semantic meanings: citizenship and ethnicity. So it is possible for individuals to be Bulgarian citizens, but not of Bulgarian ethnicity. Or vice versa. Someone of Bulgarian descent born in USA won't be necessarily Bulgarian-in-the-citizenship sense.

So in the grandparent case, he obviously meant "non-Roma", without regards to citizenship.

Yes, it's quite the can of worms when it comes to cultural/ethical/heritage/nationality identities in Bulgaria/the Balkans (and much of Europe).

I was clearly an outsider, I've visited Stolipinovo with other Bulgarians (non-Roma) who are also clearly outsiders, and we were all treated well.

Roma in the Netherlands don’t keep their children in school either, even though it’s free and compulsory. Unsurprisingly they experience the issues associated with being uneducated people.

You are right. Their situation is mostly of their own doing. And of course it's exacerbated by the discrimination, but they don't have to live in mountains of trash. Also they don't let the police in their communities, neither the taxmen. It's a de-facto state within the state. The state has "left" them the way they prefer. And I am a firm believer that this is the right stance. The only other possible approach would be something like a police state, forced labor and education etc. Free healthcare and social benefits they get even now. They literally do no work and get no jobs because they have enough money to continue their happy existence. I am not being sarcastic here by saying "happy" as it's very much visible in the article. This is the ultimate failure of the well-fare state and it's only going to get worse if the well-fare continues. It's very funny how progressives chant slogans from far away, but no one dares go propose the same ideas in-person (to the Roma).

I am also a member of a minority in Bulgaria (Turkish), but our people are nothing like the Roma - we don't live in ghettos. And although there is a lot of "historically based" hatred towards us here, I can say from experience that the (ethnic) Bulgarians are not that racist (or at least not unreasonably so). Westerners are too soft and entitled to their progressive beliefs which are going to screw them big time.

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 there’s a big community of Roma but also it’s 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. I’ve 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 isn’t much they can do but to isolate them in further areas outside the city.

I’ve seen all those things and they aren’t pretty.

> But their culture is just nothing about that.

And then you go on to describe the effects of poverty, not culture. Sounds to me like they need economic opportunity, not further isolation.

There are plenty of very poor people and groups in Europe. Look at Ukraine, for example: majority of its population lives under what in the US would count as harsh poverty. Average wage outside of Kiev is around $2500 a year (a year, not a month), and even if you adjust it for purchasing power, it still buys you less than $10k does in US. And that’s average: most people survive on less than that, some even on half that.

However, crime in Ukraine is lower than in US, and it’s significantly lower than in US cities. While its infrastructure’s state reflects the income levels, it’s not atrocious, and it’s certainly better than what US would end up with if it was only spending figures comparable to Ukraine. Certainly, you don’t have rotting garbage piling up everywhere on the sides of the street, like in the OP photos.

It’s not poverty that results in what happens in Gypsy ghettos. It’s the culture.

A Ukrainian has no problems getting a job in a restaurant kitchen in Kiev, while it's virtually impossible for a Gipsy to get a job in the city, or a flat.

This is not something you can compare.

When no amount of grit, resilience, hard work or effort will give you any result, what would you do to survive?

It seems like one issue is that the Roma can be easily identified even when mostly or fully absorbed by the surrounding culture. That isn't true of poor Ukranians I bet. But my gut says there's some dynamic with the Roma whereby remaining separate and different is highly valued by the community, and they punish their own for doing things that erode that separation. Which may be self-sustaining, but it's probably bad for them in aggregate.

Those who are integrated in a modern nation and only see the benefits (or, at best, neglect the side effects) cannot understand those who reject it because they hate various ordeals implied by the corresponding underlying system.

See Aesop’s "A Wolf and Dog" ( https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/35/aesops-fables/381/the-dog-and-... )

Roms do observe us, and may conclude that we aren't happy.

In a way Roms behavior "terraforms" a virtual Zomia ( http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12... ) inside the very geographic zones we occupy.

To be fair, that behaviour is probably more associated with poverty than their "culture". North America also has people "wearing dirty clothes, carrying a trolley, and going through garbage cans" but it has nothing to do with their ethnic or cultural background, it's due to a lack of better options.

In some places, like Andalusia, the Romani people flourished and developed a distinctive and globally appreciated culture. Even Greece has 100k Romani, and most of them are not living on the streets.

It is absolutely a poverty problem first. Racism is much harder to maintain when the evidence in front of your face is of <member of group P> doing just fine, and where continuing to be racist costs you something. Capitalism got this right.

On one hand, European culture is indeed hypocritical to throw stones at the US over racism. Quite staggeringly so, actually. If I may, it's also an excellent demonstration that skin colour really isn't that important, and the US obsession over it is a bit weird.

> it's also an excellent demonstration that skin colour really isn't that important

As a gentle counterpoint to this, most of the derogatory terms for Roma translate to "black" - even in areas where the gadji are predominantly dark

Exactly. I've heard this same type of criticism about Native Americans. "their towns are filthy, you will get robbed, (they aren't proper people, and being friends with them lowers your social status)".

Having experienced them, US reservations are definitely shitty places, but everything the OP said applies. Yes, they look like 3rd world counties, and passers-by attribute that to the people living there. Rather, the real reason these places look terrible is poverty and lack of investment.

I had the misfortune last year of having to attend a funeral on a reservation (misfortune in the sense that my friend died), and there was a stark line between the ranchland surrounding the res and the res itself.

I can't speak to Europe, but even in NA it really isn't about color of skin. I'm of French Mediterranean background, so during the summer I'm browner than most of my Hispanic friends. Doesn't matter, I 'pass' as a white person, while my Hispanic friend who is whiter than me gets treated like a second class citizen. It's fucked, but in America I don't actually think it's about race, americans just hide classism behind race since racism is more acceptable than classism.

Edit: not to say that reservations are unequalled places of filth. In my experience, even if you aren't native people are willing to help out. I was cross-country traveling on a garbage old Harley that needed help every 75 miles, and I had the most generous offers when I was in Native country vs. anything else. This agrees with the OP, in these places people are more willing to help out. For example, in a reservation town in SW SD my magneto died. I struggled with kicking the bike for 10 minutes, somebody eventually saw I was struggling and offered to call their cousin with a truck. Towing the bike behind a truck got it to fire, and everyone involved refused money (common response was "you'll need it later"). I get I was driving an absolute crap piece of machinery, but the reservation towns were much more helpful than other towns that I broke down in over that trip (and I broke down in a lot, I was driving a 71 harley sportster, they weren't even reliable when new).

Seems like culture and poverty are one and the same, in this case.

If you are poor then maybe you will behave like that, but if you behave like that then you will certainly be poor.

It's both poverty and culture. The two can't be separated. You end up with a chicken-and-egg scenario: people surrounding the Roma know that the Roma they encounter are disproportionately likely to be the people who e.g. commit street crimes. This makes them act accordingly, by doing things like avoiding groups of Roma. This makes it harder for Roma who aren't committing crimes, whose behavior is not reflected in that estimate, to improve their culture or escape it. The non-Roma estimating that the average Roma is too likely to be violent to be worth interacting with think that for a reason, and we may call it "racism" or "bigotry" but it isn't unfounded.

My sense is that it's very popular to point to external causes, causes that aren't blame-producing. "It's because they're poor"...well, maybe it's true that "If not for being poor..." but that's not the world we live in. By many accounts their culture (that is, the set of learned things they inherit) is set up to produce more poverty, crime, and social isolation. There are many groups of very poor people who do not have this problem, and who thrive in different circumstances. Accepting that there are things about their culture that would be better if changed or removed both reflects empirical reality and sets you down the road to finding a workable solution.

"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.."

Riiiight. It must be their culture?

You think that if you give them clean clothes they'll throw them away?

You think they prefer a meal picked out of a garbage can to one from a restaurant or grocery store?

Or that they'd rather have their kids go without shoes or clothes?

"I've seen all those things and they aren't pretty."

You might have seen them, but you did not understand them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=419bc_YjaFk

Yeah... this isn't about culture.

This is what poverty looks like, especially in underdeveloped areas.

Have you not seen Venice Beach lately? Or perhaps you might want to say that the current state of Venice Beach is just... it's culture?

Go watch a video on West Point, Liberia

Sorry, but you're just showing your own ignorance. Rather than accept, or be open to the fact that they are poor and discriminated against, you are just passing judgement on their entire culture.

To be fair, modern Greek culture is nothing but a shadow of its ancient past.

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.

Afraid you gave the same two first links

I heartily recommend the documentary Pretty Dyana, which follows a Roma community in Belgrade.

https://vimeo.com/66811641

Yup, what you can see from Google Street View looks no better:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/eAfMv5WfQzkTbGLJA

"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 ‘hood. 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 romaní, 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".

“...two local Bulgarian girls roped into providing translation duties...”

Did the author get two teenage girls or women to help with translation?

Author here:

At the time, I believe both girls may have been teenagers. One has become my friend - she is now in her early twenties.

If you found this interesting I could recommend the book "Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey" by Isabel Fonseca:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/148394.Bury_Me_Standing

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 Luník 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 Sorgenfrilägret 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 :/

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.

The word you're looking for is "bloc". They're apartment blocks in the ex-communist bloc.

Funny enough, over here an apartment "block" is called a "bloc". I am in the ex-communist bloc or whatever.

I think it would be impossible to have a productive discussion about Roma in an American website.

We think the exact same thing when non-americans discuss America. If you really think like that, speak only about yourself and nothing else ever.

HN is owned by an American company of course, but it is not a majority American community. The last time I ran the numbers, about 50% were in the US, and that of course includes many immigrants and expats.

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