Times change even at the Gypsy bride market

Europe Features
By Elena Lalova Mar 12, 2009, 2:07 GMT

Mogila, Bulgaria - When a Roma from a southern Bulgarian clan is looking for a bride, he goes to the traditional gathering which his folk stage in Stara Zagora each year in late winter or early spring - though as of recently some brides want to dance more than to marry.

Gypsy families from the clan have for centuries presented their daughters for marriage at the so-called bride market in Mogila, a village 220 kilometres south-east of Sofia, on the first Saturday after Easter fasting begins.

Some 2,000 from far and near - from Bulgaria's second-largest city Plovidiv, from Yambol and Sliven - made the pilgrimage again last Saturday to eye would-be-brides in seductive dresses and plastic flowers in their hair.

'I came with my daughter, my friends with their son. They are to meet and fall in love,' Kalina, arriving from Kapitan Andreevo on the Turkish border, says without any beating around the bush.

A pretty bride does not come cheap - a family of a good-looking young woman would not give her away for marriage without compensation running into the 'thousands of euros,' a woman getting off a train at the nearby station says knowingly.

The festival, on a field in Mogila next to the cattle-and-poultry market, starts with an explosion of Oriental music streaming from speakers mounted on a centrally-parked car.

A 17-year-old girl in a bright-green dress and a 21-year-old trader from Haskovo jump on the roof of their Lada and start dancing, celebrating and announcing that they married 10 days before. As on cue, others send their daughters to dance on cars.

Soon many 17- and 18-year old girls are showing off their belly- dancing skills as entire families, many with small children in tow, mill about.

But not all dancers - as two sisters from Plovdiv, dressed in dark green and maroon gowns and with heavy golden necklaces - are in Mogila to find a husband. One of them, 18-year-old Darinka, says she is 'still too young.'

'Times have changed,' Kalina laments. Around 50, with a face deeply furrowed by hard life, she wears a long braid and a colourful headscarf - the traditional signs of a married woman.

When she was introduced to her husband at the same place many years ago, she was neither asked nor offered a chance to give an opinion about her own maturity for marriage.

The Roma who gathered in Mogila belong to one of the largest Christian-Orthodox clans, traditionally working as pewter craftsmen throughout southern Bulgaria.

'Before, the girls in our clan were wed at 15. Our young would meet here, because they were not going out to cafes and clubs,' says Mariyka, 76.

'We want to keep the tradition, despite all this novelty,' she says, cursing and pointing to a flashy mobile phone hanging around the neck of a young man and rows of gleaming, expensive cars lining the field.

On the market: Teenage Gypsy girls glam up for annual bride sale

By Caroline Graham
Last updated at 8:58 AM on 10th March 2009

Dressed in their finest clothes and gold jewellery, thousands of teenage Roma girls were paraded around by their parents this weekend - at an open-air brides market.

Wearing lots of make-up, the teenagers came to the traditional annual market in Bulgaria, hoping to find a husband - and preferably one willing to pay a large amount of money for his future spouse.

'We take our daughters to this gathering so they could get acquainted with boys, for we do not allow our children to go to discos,' explains Elena from Kapitan Andreevo.

At the market in the village of Mogila near Stara Zagora, the price of a beautiful young woman is said to be several thousand levs/euros.

Younger siblings came along too to play and eat sweets while one newly-wed couple bellydanced on top of an old car to show their happiness at finding a match.

Several wannabe-brides joined in, showing their eagerness to be married.

The event takes place on the first Saturday after the start of the orthodox Easter fast - the Day of Saint Todor, or Horse Easter.

This year the gathering attracted some 2,000 people who came from all over southern Bulgaria including Plovdiv, Pasardzhik, Sliven and Jambol.

Gypsies 'could fill county's job vacancies'

Thursday, January 15, 2009, 07:30

Romany gypsies from countries including Romania and Bulgaria could be invited to Lincolnshire to take jobs previously filled by Eastern Europeans.
Gypsies and travellers currently suffering from persecution in their countries of origin could be persuaded to flee their "squalor" and step into jobs left by Poles returning home.

In Lincolnshire they have predominantly filled jobs in agriculture.

Peter Robinson, portfolio holder for social cohesion at Lincolnshire County Council, told colleagues this week: "If, because of the downturn, we start to see fewer Eastern European migrant workers from Poland and so forth, it's my personal view we could get replacements from Romania and Bulgaria."
He said Lincolnshire could extend a friendly hand to them saying "come to us and get a better deal".

"The main problem of course, whether we like it or not, is that gypsies and travellers are extremely unpopular people to have in the county," he added.

Coun Robinson was speaking during a meeting of the council's local community development and partnerships policy development group, which held talks on a new pilot project to deliver extra housing-related support to gypsy and traveller communities already living here.

But in a written response issued via the council's press office after the meeting, Coun Robinson said it only "might be the case that gypsies and travellers could take up the jobs that Eastern European migrants used to hold".

For more on the welcoming hand Lincolnshire could offer to Romany gypsies, see Thursday's Echo.

Exploring Bulgaria’s Minority Population: The Gypsies

Many people searching for property in Bulgaria are advised often by Bulgarian real estate agents to avoid villages with high gypsy populations. However many people who find themselves living in areas with many Roma residents have found that crime and social problems are low and no different to any other rural area in Bulgaria. In fact, many people have become firm friends with their gypsy neighbours and whilst it would be unwise if not impossible to move into a true gypsy ghetto, living in an area with a high ethnic population is not as detrimental as Bulgarians make out.

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Averige Gypsy's Life Lasts 10 Years Less Than Bulgarian's

Published on: 26.05.2008, 12:01
Author: Kristalina Ilieva

A project of improving the conditions and integration of minority groups in unequal position starts in Razgrad area (Northeastern Bulgaria).

The project is financed by the EU grant program FAR and Bulgarian Healthcare Ministry.

Medicine researches show, the people belonging to minority groups live average 10 years less than the other societies in Bulgaria.

Most threatening is the possibility of heart shock or brain shock in the age between 40 and 49.

The project's actions preview preventive examinations of the minority members by portative medicine cabinet, which will travel round the regional cities.

The campaign also includes 100 experts in different areas, each of them trained for the initiative in order to increase the attention towards health care culture in the gypsies' societies and increasing of attention towards health prevention.

Music Review: Princes Amongst Men - Journeys With Gypsy Musicians

Written by Richard Marcus
Published May 17, 2008


It's now pretty much common knowledge that the people most of the world refers to as Gypsies originated in the northern part of India. When they began their western migration isn't exactly known, but it is known that from India they set out on a road that took them first to Egypt, then Turkey, and from there on into Europe. Even though they have spread throughout continental Europe as far west as the Iberian peninsula it is the East that most of us seem to identify as being where Gypsies live.

Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Balkan states that stretch from what was once Yugoslavia down to Greece are the primary countries associated with Gypsies. Roma, as they call themselves, have become part of their cultural fabric. This is especially true in Hungary and Romania, where the folk music of these countries is now irrevocably linked to Gypsy music. This hasn't stopped them from being treated like second class, or even third class citizens in the years since World War Two.

Despised by a great deal of the general population, and denigrated as thieves, only Jews have a longer history in Eastern Europe of being ostracized and persecuted and both have suffered horribly for it. Yet somehow they have managed to survive. From the persecutions of the Inquisition to the Death Camps of the Nazis, and the intolerance of repressive Communist regimes, the Gypsies have been marginalized almost since they set foot in Eastern Europe. Living within their own communities and following their own traditions, the only bridge that has been built between them and the rest of the world has been their music.

Garth Cartwright is from New Zealand but like so many other people fell in love with the romantic side of Gypsy life. It was that infatuation that brought him to the Balkans in 1991 to begin the travelling that would end up becoming the basis for his book Princes Amongst Men - Journeys With Gypsy Musicians.

The book recounted his meetings with the men and women who performed Gypsy music in the Balkans, specifically Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. He chose those four countries for their "deep reservoirs of Gypsy music" and because their proximity allowed him to travel back and forth between the four countries with ease.

The book has been translated into a number of European languages, and is distributed by the Asphalt Tango record label in Germany, who specialize in the production and distribution of Gypsy music from Eastern Europe and Russia. So it's not surprising that they have just released a companion CD for the book.

Princes Amongst Men features the music of some of the best known performers from the four countries that Cartwright travelled through, performers that he spent time with and came to know personally.

While bands like Taraf de Haidouks and Fanfare Ciocarlia have achieved some name recognition in Western Europe and North America through touring and appearances in movies, (Taraf de Haidouks appeared alongside Johnny Depp in The Man Who Cried and he has become one of their biggest champions in the West), others on the disc won't be as well known to audiences outside of their own countries.

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Bulgaria's childrens homes creak under weight of social ills

SOFIA (AFP) — Faced with the urgent problem of some 8,000 abandoned children, Bulgaria is desperately trying to modernise its network of dilapidated orphanages amid revelations of paedophilia and cruelty.

Deliberately built in isolated settings by the previous communist regime, its 144 state "homes for children deprived of parental care" have an odd formal purpose, given orphans account for just two percent of their population.

Social affairs minister Emilia Maslarova explains that many are readily given up by their parents, but that these parents refuse to sign away parental rights which prevents the children from entering adoption programmes.

The depth of the sector's problems hit home earlier this month when an adolescent girl in an orphanage in the western town of Tran was killed, with another boy and girl injured by a man who subsequently committed suicide.

The killer, a 67-year-old paedophile with a rape conviction already on his record, apparently succumbed to jealous rage over special attention paid to the injured gypsy girl by a member of the orphanage's staff.

Meanwhile, in northwestern Bulgaria, three young girls at an orphanage in Berkovitsa told New Television station that three men paid them "to undress" and "to play doctors."

The centre's director acknowledged that "paedophiles have shown interest in the children."

At Plovdiv, in the south, several children were able to eat rat poison held within their dormitories, which they thought was candy.

And in Sofia, another young girl was injured when she fell from a window while trying to hang herself with an improvised cord made out of bed sheets.

According to the management of one orphanage, these incidents can be explained due to poor supervision as it is difficult to attract qualified staff with salaries of 170 euros (265 dollars) per month.

Prosecutors have launched investigations into the conditions at state orphanages in the country of 7.7 million inhabitants, still struggling to cope with the transition from a communist to a capitalist economy.

"Homes right across the country are in a deplorable state and incidents such as these can happen anywhere," Zoia Sokolova, director of Sofia orphanage 'Assen Zlatarov' told AFP.

This centre, held up as a model for the system, "barely keeps (its) head above water" and is also toiling with a dearth of qualified personnel.

Centralised efforts to move away from the cruel practice of isolating mentally handicapped or delinquent children have created a strain on resources which is proving very difficult to manage.

"Twenty percent of our children come from families with serious problems, 14 percent have been convicted of crimes and another eight percent have suffered from sexual violence," Sokolova added.

"People expect that our homes can produce miracles.... Without (proper) support from the authorities, it's an absurd expectation."

On the grounds of poor care, the government agency charged with protecting children's rights has recommended the closure of sites such as the one at Tran and a home for mentally handicapped children at Mogilinio, in the north.

But these orphanages continue to operate because their staff have jobs which cannot be given up.

"The homes produce marginals, outsiders," says Slavka Koukova of Bulgaria's Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, part of an international network of independent, not-for-profit watchdogs which has been monitoring these homes for years.

"The problems within these homes stem from incompetence at every level," she underlined.

Efforts at reform have been underway since 2001, with the very worst orphanages closed and families, usually Roma (gypsy), given encouragement to take their children back.

Some adoptions, however, have been snarled up in red tape for as long as three or four years, whereas the very fact of living in these establishments hinders a child's development, Sokolova said.

In 2003, Bulgaria began reforming its adoption system to bring it into line with international norms and in an effort to stamp out corruption and child trafficking.

But the net result has been a sharp fall in the numbers finding new families: just 708 children were adopted in 2007, against 1,600 per year prior to the changes.

Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved.

Roma's isolation in Bulgaria - fertile grounds for tension

By Elena Lalova, dpa


Sofia (dpa) - Violence targeting Roma and committed by Roma is not unusual in Bulgaria. But the recent explosion of violent hatred in a quarter in the capital Sofia has gone far beyond the ordinary and finally raised the question about the cause of the problem.

Over two nights last week, hundreds of Gypsy men went on a rampage in the Krasna Polyana part of the capital. Waving knives, axes and poles and screaming "death to Bulgarians," the mob torched dust bins, damaged cars and demolished a shop.

Only a massive deployment of special police prevented anyone from getting killed. The media and politicians have since been speculating as to what caused the outbreak.

The Roma say that they wanted to protect themselves from the violently chauvinist, skinhead gangs who go about beating up and molesting the Gypsies on a regular basis.

So, in preventive retaliation, four Gypsies attacked a bald-headed man in a pub and three of his colleague. However, he turned out not a skinhead, but a well-armed employee of a security firm. It may be the fear and frustration of the foiled attackers which sparked the subsequent violence.

Frightened by what it saw, the public has been pressing the authorities for action. Interior Minister Rumen Petkov has promised the "full power of the law" against those responsible for the riot and discussed the issue with President Georgi Parvanov.

Some speculate that trouble was a result of "political interests" and aimed to "liven things up" ahead of municipal polls. That train of thought leads to the conclusion that Gypsies actually rioted to push up the price of their votes in the elections.

In Bulgaria, it is a public secret that the political parties effectively buy the Gypsy votes.

"The Roma vote is an expensive item," said Antonina Zhelyaskova, the head of the Sofia-based Minorities Research Centre.

Of the 7.6 million Bulgarians, some 650,000 are Roma, the centre estimates. Among them, the unemployment rate is a whopping 71 per cent and two-thirds of them survive on less than 100 leva (60 dollars) monthly. Some 68 per cent never achieve basic schooling.

"There are parallel worlds here," Zhelyaskova said, referring to the absence of communication between the mainstream and the Gypsy community.

"That is fertile grounds for tension," she said, adding that relations have "significantly worsened," even as one-fourth of the period declared as the "Decade of Roma Integration" has passed.

Pressed by the European Union, which it joined on January 1, Bulgaria has launched a series of projects aimed to improve the integration of the Roma.

It will however take much more to eliminate the deeply-rooted prejudice, Zhelyakova warned. In some cases, the effort has backfired, drawing sour complaints from Slavic Bulgarians that the Gypsies felt themselves to be "above the law."

In a reaction, a nationalist "Volunteer Guard" has been set up in three cities. The fledgling organization so far has only around 35 "troops" in Sofia and branches in the second-largest city of Plovdiv as well as in Jambol and Veliko Tarnovo.

The declared goal of the group, dressed in uniforms that not by coincidence are reminiscent of the Hitler Youth of Nazi Germany, is to "protect the life, property and families of citizens ... from the terror of Gypsies."