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

• umvi 6y ago
  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"...
  • s9w 6y ago
    Do you know Roma?
    • carlsborg 6y ago
      My friend. Let me help you with a definition from the top hit on Google for this word.. racism /ˈreɪsɪz(ə)m/ noun prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
      • s9w 6y ago
        Don't you think that makes it a bit easy? Every european knows Roma. If I were to cite crime statistics, that would make me a racist? It would also be illegal for me, depending on the judge. This whole comment section is just insane. A bunch of Americans complaining about racist Europeans. I would really like to encourage to visit a big European city and watch them.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • vetinari 6y ago
        I would like to know your opinion, after living for a few weeks nearby one of such group. Maybe you would turn racist then? /s Most people here do not have that experience. In their ignorance they think, that it is a case of racism. It is not. It is not tolerating asocial behavior. Romas, who integrate into the society are accepted by the majority. Unfortunately, that requires for the individuals to break ties with their community, because their community encourages their members to behave asocially. It is really hard problem, you cannot even start with pupils in school, as they routinely skip it, because... see previous sentence. Untold millions of euro were spent to solve this problem. It was wasted money.
        • eznzt 6y ago
          >Romas, who integrate into the society are accepted by the majority. In fact, here in the south, they are completely indistinguishable--we have the exact same skin colour, facial features, etc. You can only tell romas apart when they choose to. In other words, this is not a case similar to blacks in America. As you said it is probably an unsolvable problem. Better in ghettos than causing trouble. If any roma wants to leave the ghetto and live a normal life, nobody would bat an eye--in fact, nobody would even notice.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • dang 6y ago
      Flamebait will get you banned here, especially on racial/ethnic topics. We don't want the predictable and toxic material that leads to. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd be grateful. Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Most comments in this thread, even the ones with a negative tinge, show some evidence of earnestly wrestling with the topic. Your post does not. Please don't post like this here.
      • s9w 6y ago
        Your assessment doesn't hold any water. It's a bunch of Americans virtue signalling about how good they are, talking about a problem they don't know. Hence my inquiry about that. Because as a European, I know that the things said in this thread are objectively not true.
        • dang 6y ago
          Even assuming all that is true, the comment broke the site guidelines and is not ok to post here.
          • s9w 6y ago
            No it didn't. But the lovely guy in this thread who called me a racist did. And the 2-5 trump posts per day do. And the guys who openly call for violence do. The guidelines have been ignored or months now, leaving nothing of value on this site. I will continue to do what I do. I recommend that you ban me though.
            • dang 6y ago
              Ok, since you don't want to use HN as intended, I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
  • SubiculumCode 6y ago
    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.
  • apecat 6y ago
    I came here to write pretty much this. Here's a picture to clarify even further. https://imgur.com/m88rKwx https://imgur.com/m88rKwx
    • DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
      Honest question: I can't figure out what the point is that that image is making. (I can't reconcile the image with the caption.) Could someone explain?
      • mmm_grayons 6y ago
        There is a whole subset of memes focused on the "political compass", which maps one's position from liberal to conservative and from authoritarian to libertarian. Right-wing authoritarian is where people like nazis are typically placed; left-wing libertarian is where progressives or green party type people are typically placed. The joke is that some Europeans will say, "We should treat everyone equally; hon hon, look at silly American being racist!" then go treat gypsies poorly (moving from bottom-left to top-right).
      • hervature 6y ago
        When Europeans talk about racism in America they are left/libertarian in their views (red dot in the low left quadrant in the left image). When they talk about the Romani, they are basically Nazis (so extreme in the top right quadrant that you need to draw a swastika to extend the graph to get the dot to appear)
    • malkia 6y ago
      Spot on. Lots of my friends back from the country (Bulgaria), relatives, etc. We also did this atrocity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_Process#1989_Ethnic_Cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_Process#1989_Ethnic_Cl...
    • dang 6y ago
      Please don't post flamebait to HN. We don't need this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • knuthsat 6y ago
    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/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0494831/ Documentary above also really nicely shows the microculture of these people
    • mpol 6y ago
      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 :) ).
      • true_religion 6y ago
        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.
      • dx87 6y ago
        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.
  • INTPenis 6y ago
    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.
    • cblconfederate 6y ago
      > 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
      • StavrosK 6y ago
        That's what my American friends say, but it's easy to tell, for example, Albanians and Greeks apart, or Englishpeople and Spaniards.
        • evgen 6y ago
          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.
          • StavrosK 6y ago
  • pmoriarty 6y ago
    "I always respond by pointing out that the citizens of almost every country are naturally xenophobic and/or racist" That "everybody's racist" and "racism is natural" is a common refrain from white supremacists and Neo Nazis. It's sickening to see that propaganda upvoted on HN. No. Not everybody's racist, and it's certainly not "natural".
    • tdeck 6y ago
      You're probably being downvoted for mentioning neo Nazis but you're absolutely right. Racism and these various similar tensions aren't "natural", they're constructed over time by people with their own agendas. In the U.S. what we've come to know as racism is a set of ideas constructed to justify slavery. Roma people were similarly held as slaves in the medieval area - discrimination against them benefitted slaveholders economically and justified their exploitation.
      • layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
        >Roma people were similarly held as slaves in the medieval area - discrimination against them benefitted slaveholders economically and justified their exploitation. [citation needed]
        • fwip 6y ago
          Google's a great tool. I typed in "Roma slavery" and got dozens of hits. Take your pick.
    • Causality1 6y ago
      In-group out-group thinking is completely natural. That doesn't make it good. If you expose a dog to only one race or one sex from when it's a puppy, it will be uncomfortable as an adult around others. Same goes for a child. It's up to us to adjust ourselves to a diverse global community that our genes never could've prepared us for.
      • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  • marton78 6y ago
    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.
    • ithkuil 6y ago
      > Roma and the other gypsy peoples I thought gypsy was the exonym for the Roma(ni) people. Are there other "gypsy" peoples?
      • bigbubba 6y ago
        Irish Travellers are sometimes called gypsies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers
      • de_Selby 6y ago
        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.
        • ithkuil 6y ago
          > 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.
  • DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    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.
    • foobar1962 6y ago
      Same here in Australia regarding the "gypped" expression. I don't think there are any Roma communities here but the expression travelled down.
  • pchjys12 6y ago
    Most Roma at a very young age are taught by their parents a moral code that says, "Never steal from your own Roma people, but outsiders are fair game, for they are not your people." During countless European wars this was also the code, for example, "English ships may rob Spanish treasure galleons, for the Spanish are not the English." "The Spanish may rob the indigenous New Worlders of their gold, for they are not Spanish." There have been many largely unsuccessful humanitarian efforts in Europe to get Roma to assimilate better, to abandon their nomadic lifestyle so that their children can remain enrolled in the same public school and eventually qualify for decent jobs that can pull them up in society. But they are culturally resistant to change.
  • petre 6y ago
    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-wide-shut-collective-punishment-roma-twenty-first-century-europe/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/eyes-wid...
    • adventured 6y ago
      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-immigrant-ghettos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/europe/denmark-immi... (https://archive.is/Um7tE https://archive.is/Um7tE) https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/3/17525960/denmark-children-immigrant-muslim-danish-ghetto https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/3/17525960/denmark-children... https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/01/15/denmarks-ghetto-plan-and-the-communities-it-targets/ https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/01/15/denmarks-ghett...
  • jrochkind1 6y ago
    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".
    • wussboy 6y ago
      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
      • earthboundkid 6y ago
        “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).
        • jrochkind1 6y ago
          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.
  • abraxas 6y ago
    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.
  • yeetman21 6y ago
    Unless you live next to them, you should not judge what others (who have lived next to them) say
  • 01100011 6y ago
    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?
    • Bost 6y ago
      > 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.
  • dvoiss 6y ago
    > 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.
    • earthboundkid 6y ago
      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.
  • rsync 6y ago
    "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 ?
    • CydeWeys 6y ago
      It's always been easy to justify racism against people that don't speak your language. That's a hell of an outgroup.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • Spooky23 6y ago
    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.
  • hechang1997 6y ago
    I would go so far as saying people are born racist and can only grow out of it.
• carlsborg 6y ago
  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.
  • turbinerneiter 6y ago
    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.
    • eznzt 6y ago
      >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.
      • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        > 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).
    • baq 6y ago
      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.
• shmerl 6y ago
  > 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAgPnsaxdsk
• pmoriarty 6y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_the_Dead_%28Cairo%29 [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8KiBycJi9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8KiBycJi9I [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeystshWL2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeystshWL2I [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYzKdf33AJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYzKdf33AJg [5] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabbaleen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabbaleen
  • malkia 6y ago
    The word "gypsy" seems to have roots in people from "Egypt" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people#Other_designations 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)
• mrtksn 6y ago
  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 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.
  • axegon_ 6y ago
    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.
• baxtr 6y ago
  "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.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• EB-Barrington 6y ago
  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.
  • Causality1 6y ago
    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?
    • EB-Barrington 6y ago
      Not that I have encountered. Perhaps all of the Gypsy/Roma I have spoken with are too polite to let me know otherwise.
    • emteycz 6y ago
      Here in Czechia many use the 'vulgar' variant (cikán) themselves. I wouldn't use it in my writing though.
      • malkia 6y ago
        It's "циганин" (tsiganin, or ciganin) in Bulgaria. But this is now deemed offensive, hence roma.
• pachico 6y ago
  Yup, what you can see from Google Street View looks no better: https://maps.app.goo.gl/eAfMv5WfQzkTbGLJA https://maps.app.goo.gl/eAfMv5WfQzkTbGLJA
• jmcdl 6y ago
  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.
  • colinb 6y ago
    I’ll confused. What has San Francisco got to do with this?
    • earthboundkid 6y ago
      Lol, I a Baltimoron, also live amongst garbage. It’s what happens if you don’t pay for street sweepers.
  • loxs 6y ago
    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.
  • neurostimulant 6y ago
    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.
  • Viliam1234 6y ago
    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.
• eznzt 6y ago
  I think it would be impossible to have a productive discussion about Roma in an American website.
  • simlevesque 6y ago
    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.
  • dang 6y ago
    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.
• dimitar 6y ago
  You can go on google maps and judge for yourself: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.1589047,24.785939,3a,75y,202.54h,87.09t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sR-4Q2vtkAWM2jEwAq7ycmQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DR-4Q2vtkAWM2jEwAq7ycmQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D81.555214%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 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,202.54h,87.09t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sR-4Q2vtkAWM2jEwAq7ycmQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DR-4Q2vtkAWM2jEwAq7ycmQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D81.555214%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 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://www.kevorkkevorkian.com/bg/publications%26article_id%3D5266.html 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.
  • evolvedlight 6y ago
    Afraid you gave the same two first links
• nottorp 6y ago
  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.
  • _-___________-_ 6y ago
    The word you're looking for is "bloc". They're apartment blocks in the ex-communist bloc.
    • nottorp 6y ago
      Funny enough, over here an apartment "block" is called a "bloc". I am in the ex-communist bloc or whatever.
• knolan 6y ago
  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.
• vicpara 6y ago
  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.
  • petre 6y ago
    Integration does work but not when you segregate a minority into ghettos. The Germans learned this and they stopped segregating refugees. Everywhere else the refugees end up in a 'camp'.
    • p2detar 6y ago
      Uhm, I’m honestly curious, who do you think is doing the segregation of Roma?
      • petre 6y ago
        Almost everyone, even themselves because of their culture: arranged teen weddings, not sending their kids to school, etc.
    • Bost 6y ago
      On one hand, Germans try hard to avoid ghettoization. On the other hand they LOVE order. That means meticulously inspecting every bolt and nut, finding differences and putting them, with great pleasure, to different boxes. Like: These two bolts are of the same size. Yes but they have different color. Imagine a policewoman, from 2nd or 3rd generation of a guest worker family, considering herself to be "rather turkish". And actually that's a sign her of flawless integration - completely in line with the way how the "German" Germans think of her. Because she has dark eyes and slightly, really just a tiny bit darker skin, even if she behaves like a typical German police(wo)man.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• locallost 6y ago
  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.
• bruceb 6y ago
  “...two local Bulgarian girls roped into providing translation duties...” Did the author get two teenage girls or women to help with translation?
  • EB-Barrington 6y ago
    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.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• kostarelo 6y ago
  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.
  • glitcher 6y ago
    > 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.
    • xyzzyz 6y ago
      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.
      • purerandomness 6y ago
• markvdb 6y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cat,_White_Cat [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Kusturica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Kusturica
• nesarkvechnep 6y ago
  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.
• bogomipz 6y ago
  >"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.
• bogomipz 6y ago
  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 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/148394.Bury_Me_Standing
• charlysl 6y ago
  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".
• altmind 6y ago
  Have you heard of Luník IX, the largest gypsy ghetto/district in Slovakia?
• sorenjan 6y ago
  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-i-malmo-2015-11-01/ 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-strewn-caravan-sites-blight-Sweden-temporary-Romanian-camps-spring-country-migration-restrictions-eased.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532716/The-rubbish...
• jsanford 6y ago
  I heartily recommend the documentary Pretty Dyana, which follows a Roma community in Belgrade. https://vimeo.com/66811641 https://vimeo.com/66811641
• Kosirich 6y ago
  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.
• _hao 6y ago
  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 :/
• imartin2k 6y ago
  Just yesterday stumbled upon this YouTube video of a guy visiting a similar place in Slovakia called Lunik IX https://youtu.be/cG4aYsvgchA https://youtu.be/cG4aYsvgchA