Gypsies, citizens without rights

Friday 22 May 2009

FRANCE 24’s reporter went to meet gypsies in Russia. Considered second class citizens, they are victims of numerous discriminations. This report was filmed in Chudovo, south of Saint-Petersburg.

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Racist Leaflets Inspire Hatred for Minority

A story sent to me from September 30, 2005

By Irina Titova
Staff Writer

Human rights experts are worried by rising racist trends after leaflets calling for violence against Roma were circulated in the city of Pskov, 280 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, in September.

“We are calling for Russia to be cleaned up! No To Gypsy Drug Barons! Save Your Children!” read the leaflets posted at the city’s bus stops, the St. Petersburg branch of non-governmental human rights group Memorial reported Wednesday.

The leaflets accused the Roma of drug trafficking and compared them to spiders.

“Pskov residents! The most terrible disease of our times — drug addiction — is spreading in our city. Taking advantage of the authorities’ negligence, gypsy families have organized the unrestricted and widespread sale of drugs in Pskov. Every day, more and more of our children get become captives of drugs,” one of the leaflets read.

The leaflets were signed by a movement calling itself Free Russia, which called for Pskov residents to provide lists of names and addresses of Roma living in the city.

The leaflets also stated that police statistics cite Roma as being Russia’s “most active drug traders.”

The leaflets have alarmed Pskov Roma, who are afraid to go out, fearing they could be attacked, said Olga Abramenko, coordinator of the Northwest Center For Social and Juridical Defense of Roma at St. Petersburg’s Memorial, on Wednesday.

“The leaflets were absolutely racist, nationalist and aggressive. And it is not true that according to police statistics Roma are the main drug traders [in Russia],” Abramenko said.

The distribution of leaflets took place not long after the kidnapping and murder of a Roma man, Vladimir Berezovsky, on Aug. 30, leading to fears that the two events are linked.

A few days after the murder, another local Roma man, Alexander Mikhailov, was beaten up after attackers questioned him about his ethnicity.

The Pskov city prosecution has opened criminal investigations into both the murder and the attack, but neither have been solved, Abramenko said.

Abramenko also said Memorial could not be sure if the nationalist group Free Russia exists in reality.

Boris Pustyntsev, co-head of St. Petersburg’s human rights Citizen Watch said that some Roma do to turn to crime as they are unable to find lawful employment due to discrimination. He stressed, however, that not only gypsies are dealing in drugs.

“When someone has no other way to make money, he often gets involved in crime. That’s not just the case with Roma — it also happens with Russians and people of other ethnicities,” Pustyntsev said.

Romanian Rockers Gig House Of Music

26 November 2008
By Marina Darmaros / Special to The Moscow Times

Until 1996, the 12 members of Romanian Gypsy band Fanfare Ciocarlia were peasant farmers and factory workers who performed at weddings and baptisms just to earn a living. None of them even had passports.

Their new life of world tours and music awards has not, however, brought about any seismic shifts in their lifestyles.

"There have been no big changes," said Costica "Cimai" Trifan, trumpet player for Fanfare, which will showcase its 2007 album "Queens and Kings" at the International House of Music Sunday night. "Of course, we live better economics-wise, but the traditional life is still the same."

This is surely no accident -- the Balkan-brass beats that grew out of this traditional lifestyle are what gained them their stardom in the first place.

On a fateful day 12 years ago, a German sound engineer, Henry Ernst, discovered the north Romanian village of Zece Prajini, hometown of the future members of Fanfare. The area had long been known as the country's best place to find good musicians, and almost every man there plays an instrument. Ernst, now the band's manager and co-founder of their record label Asphalt Tango, quickly convinced them to form a touring band.

"We definitely have more fun playing at concerts, as there, we are the stars, and our music is really appreciated," Cimai said. "At weddings, we play what the people want us to play. Sometimes it's a lot of fun, especially when performing at Gypsy weddings, and sometimes it's terrible."

Fanfare's performance vibe is deeply marked by the experience playing Romanian and Gypsy weddings, which can last anywhere from all day and night to an entire week.

Besides high velocity and marathon energy, Gypsy music is most marked by extreme diversity of influence. Its deepest roots lie in Turkish military bands from a century ago, but since then the genre has crossed virtually every national border in southern Europe, picking up additional shades of international flavor.

"[Gypsy music] is music made by Romani people from across Europe -- so the Gypsy jazz of Django [Reinhardt] in France, flamenco of Spain, Balkan brass of the Balkans, et cetera," noted Garth Cartwright, author of "Princes Amongst Men," a book on Gypsy music and the post-communist Balkan states. "The only connection these disparate musicians have is a willingness to break the rules of music and entertain. And [they all] play brilliantly."

Fanfare has expanded even outside the boundaries of the European continent, borrowing from Brazilian batucada, Cuban rumba, some Arab music and even the James Bond theme, a long-distance range they condense down in defining Gypsies as "the original internationalists."

The band has put out five albums, the last of which sold about 130,000 copies. Their many notable moments include winning the Europe category at the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music in 2006, being featured in the acclaimed German-Turkish film "Gegen Die Wand" ("Head On") and creating an astonishing version of "Born to be Wild" for Sascha Baron Cohen's satirical movie "Borat."

Their real reputation, though, comes from their performances on stage.

"Fanfare are awesome live," Cartwright said. "They play with such power and groove -- organic East European dance music."

Fanfare Ciocarlia will headline the "Gypsy Kings and Queens" performance Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. at the International House of Music, 58 Kosmodamianskaya Naberezhnaya. M. Paveletskaya. 730-1011. www.mmdm.ru.

Nomadic Beauty

A new exhibition shows a life-long fascination with gypsies.

By Yelena Shuster
Published: July 25, 2008

Behind a stark background of a dilapidated shack and bare trees stands a dark-skinned gypsy in a white wedding dress. Her gaze is defiant as one hand holds up the lace dress and the other hand rests boldly on her hips.

This contrast between the lovely and the wretched has immortalized photographer Lyalya Kuznetsova since 1979, when she first began capturing intimate moments in black and white all over Eurasia.

Since then, her documentary style has won her exhibitions and medals all over Europe and the United States. The current "Gypsies" exhibition at the Pobeda Gallery has collected 47 of her photographs over a 19-year period in order to introduce these classics to younger generations.

"Non-conformist Soviet photographers like Lyalya fell in a temporary pothole because of what was going on in the country at the time," said curator Irina Meglinskaya. "They are all legends, of course, but they don't exist in the mainstream. It was very important for me to connect this generation with the past one."

Known for their exotic dress and nomadic habits, gypsies have always been considered second-class citizens in Russian culture. Stereotypes include their practice of black magic and their penchant for pick-pocketing and stealing children.

Kuznetsova depicts their life on the outskirts of society with an intimacy rarely achieved by the presence of a camera. Her decision to capture the gypsy way of life was a personal one.

The year was 1977 and Kuznetsova's husband passed away. She quit her job as an aviation engineer and picked up a camera. Without any technical training, the Kazakhstan native dug into her childhood and began capturing the bright necklaces and skirt rustles of the gypsies around Oral, with whom she grew up.

"When things are awful, we reach for the roots that previously gave us strength. Photography became my way of expressing my sorrow," she said.

Though her mother warned her that gypsies kidnap children who misbehave, Kuznetsova was entranced by the gypsies who came to buy milk from her aunt's cow in a nearby village. Kuznetsova remembers watching the gypsies and their bright bonfires from atop the roof of her aunt's house.

"In my childhood, gypsies were always surrounded by this mystery. It was some kind of fairytale," Kuznetsova said. "With them was connected the smell of sagebrush, the smell of the steppe and the sound of bitter gypsy songs."

Kuznetsova began her photography career with a five-year-old daughter in her arms, and a major motif of the exhibit is a mother's love for her child. Whether depicting an elderly gypsy from Oral sitting on a pile of bedding behind a carriage with two girls by her side or a Turkmen grandmother snuggling with a child concealed in her veil, Kuznetsova portrays the resilience of these women without bordering on kitsch.

Kuznetsova considers all of her photography self-portraits. Though she is already a grandmother, her spirit is in that gypsy girl with the wedding dress, her gaze defiant amidst the damage that surrounds her.

For her next project, Kuznetsova plans to return to her beloved subject and photograph gypsies in the 21st century in Moscow's surrounding regions. Though she has been photographing gypsies for almost two decades, Kuznetsova has no idea what to expect.

"I cannot predict what happens when I click the camera," Kuznetsova said. "When I photograph, I don't think about the spectator. In fact, I don't think at all. I search for the photos where I feel a snag in my heart."

"Gypsies" (Tsygane) runs to Aug. 31 at Pobeda Gallery in Winzavod Center of Contemporary Arts, located at 1 4th Syromyatnichesky Pereulok, Bldg. 6. Metro Kurskaya. Tel. 917-4646.

The Spellbinding Music of Vardos

By Emma Hall
Special to the Epoch Times Jun 21, 2007


Vardos' Alana Hunt with her quick violin, Sofia Chapman plays the piano accordion and Indra Buraczewska on the bass at the Surrey Music Cafe in Box Hill. (Jarrod Hall)

Stories of cheese, milk, flies, horse taxis and mountains may not sound like the ideal night out, but it's merely the appetiser to the gypsy music that regularly sweeps the audience off their feet when Vardos work their magic. The trio play gypsy as well as traditional Hungarian and Romanian songs with a few Russian tunes thrown in.

Vardos energetically play a game of cat and mouse with their instruments while closely interacting with each other and the audience. Violinist Alana Hunt drives the trio with her violin; Sofia Chapman plays the piano accordion, while Indra Buraczewska – "the authentic European" – plays the bass.

Sofia Chapman explains why she is drawn to specialise in European music: "With the folk music and the gypsy music it just seems to be very lively and when you go and hang out in those communities you see everyone in the village just gets involved and so for weddings they'll go for days on end. It's just dancing and enjoying the music. It's exciting to get caught up in that too."

The band was formed in 1993 in Perth by Alana Hunt and since then Alana, along with Sofia, has made several trips to Europe to enhance their gypsy music training.

Watching them perform, it really doesn't matter where they're from; they've certainly captured the European gypsy music spirit excitement and humour.

During the show, Alana tells earthy stories of cheese, milk, flies, horses and mountains to introduce the origin of many songs. Some of Vardos's songs, particularly the Romanian ones, have slow melodies that are perfectly interwoven with each other. Other songs spin into a dizzying passion and dancing, and showcase the fantastic interaction between the three musicians who exchange meaningful looks.

One Romanian song about fairies at a stream had a lingering and mysterious quality to it that really made one feel as if walking in a deep forest.

"A lot of the people that we've learnt from do happen to be gypsies. That section of the gypsy community that plays the music, they just try and outdo everybody and play the best that they can and that's why whatever sort of music they play, gypsy musicians can excel at it," says Sofia Chapman.

Apart from playing to live audiences, Vardos have also branched out into film and television with a line-up of several short-film soundtracks to their name, including the ABC series "Seachange". More recently, in March this year, they were guests on The Footy Show playing their version of It's more than a Game.

They also featured in Ruth Cullen's documentary on artist Vali Myers, Painted Lady.

Vardos have toured in the US, Germany, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Switzerland, around Hungary and also played at the Famous Spiegeltent in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2003 they were nominated for the BBC Radio3 World Music Awards.

It is rare that musicians who are not native to the cultures of Romania and Hungary can hold their own when playing the music to which locals claim ownership. But even the locals admit that gypsy music is best left to gypsies; the fact that Vardos dare to tread into such emotionally charged territory speaks volumes. A quote from a Romanian local newspaper illustrates their passion: "If in the beginning of our careers we thought that we couldn't live without music, now we are sure that we can't live without Romanian music."

Vardos will perform on Saturday June 16 at the Austrian Club in Heidelberg West in Melbourne and at the Czech House on June 17 in North Melbourne. In true gypsy fashion the trio perform at a whole range of events that also include weddings. To find out more and sample their spellbinding music visit www.vardos.com.au.


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Copyright 2000 - 2007 Epoch Times International

Estonia erects monument to Gypsy victims of Nazi executions

TALLINN, May 7 (RIA Novosti) - A monument to Gypsies murdered in a Nazi death camp near Tallinn during WWII has been unveiled in Estonia, local TV said.

Estonian TV said Sunday it took the country's Gypsy community six years to find a site and collect money for the monument to about 2,000 Gypsies, who were executed in Kalevi-Lijva together with 4,000 of German, Czechoslovak and Polish Jews during WWII.

Late in April, Estonian authorities removed the Bronze Soldier statue to Soviet soldiers buried in central Tallinn to a military cemetery at the city's outskirts.

The monument's relocation sparked a wave of protests, both in Moscow and Tallinn. Last week Russia expressed deep concern about a lack of response from the European Union to Tallinn's actions and was angered by the reaction of some EU countries, as well as the U.S., which said it was the Baltic state's internal affair and called for dialogue.