This month, we are honouring Džansver Dalipova, known as the Queen of Romani music here on the Balkans. She passed away recently, in August 2026, and after dedicating and drawing inspiration for our 3 September articles from her songs, we are now going to close off the month with an incredible masterpiece.

Kemano baśal e Romenge is a beautiful song that not only calls for unity among the Roma with poverful and poetic language, but it is also very, very difficult to sing. The song requires incredible technique, but as you will find for yourself, Džansever makes it seem easy.

The song is captivating even if you don’t understand the lyrics, and it has become one of the many beloved Romani songs outside of Romani circles, with non-Roma singers also trying to perform it as a demonstration of skill and talent.

Enjoy it for yourself, with the lyrics in Romanes and the English translation below.

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There was a Facebook video call a few years ago that has stayed with us.

It was taken during one of the tribe’s celebrations, and Sadik was calling his mother.

This was significant because Sadik was in prison. He had been there for years, with only short periods of freedom in between. His daughter was still a child the last time he had seen her properly. Now she was fifteen.

His mother turned the phone around so he could see her and the girl stood up and started dancing.

Sadik is known in the tribe as one of the best dancers. His daughter was dancing in front of him, now grown. She was dancing like a Goddess, already known as one of the best in the tribe, just like her father. But as amazing as it was to watch her, watching Sadik’s face on his mother’s phone screen was what stayed with us. He had a wide smile, beaming with pride, and tears flowing down his face with unspeakable sorrow.

There is a tendency, when we talk about prison, to imagine the crime first and the human being second.

So let us start with something that may surprise you.

Sadik was not in prison for murder. He was not some spectacular criminal who had committed an extraordinary crime.

He was there because of petty theft.

In many Balkan Romani communities living in poverty, when a man spends years going in and out of prison, the thing that started the cycle is very often not some spectacular crime at all. It is a phone, a bicycle, a piece of jewellery. Something taken from the street. Something that can be sold quickly enough to put some money in your pocket today.

And by the time the man is sitting behind bars watching his fifteen-year-old daughter dance on a phone screen, the original object he stole can feel almost absurdly insignificant compared to what has grown around it.

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The thing people expect us to say about prison

There is a very particular social meaning attached to prison in mainstream society.

Anyone who goes to prison is marked by it. The family is ashamed, and often even abandon their imprisoned relative. Once the inmate is out, they enter a cold society who now looks down upon him and keeps a distance. Finding a job, or a social circle, is even harder than serving the sentence. The entire event can become a kind of moral dividing line: this person crossed over there, into a category called “criminal,” while the rest of us remain safely on this side.

In the Balkan Romani communities living in poverty, it does not work this way. A man who has been to prison is not automatically rejected by his community. He is not treated as though he has permanently fallen out of society. He comes back and sits at the table. He attends celebrations. His mother cries for him. His wife waits for him. His children visit him. While he is inside, they do everything in their power to support him and visit him as often as possible.

And when he comes home, people generally know exactly what he has been through.

The prison sentence is not a source of shame. It is, however, a source of sorrow. That difference is difficult to understand until you understand what people are being imprisoned for.

Because, again, we are not primarily talking here about spectacular crimes. We are talking about petty theft.

We actually wrote about this years ago, because the stereotype that Roma are “thieves” is one of the oldest and most persistent stereotypes attached to the community. The honest answer to “does theft happen?” is yes. But, as we wrote then, that answer is also incomplete and lazy. Poverty and social exclusion contribute to higher rates of criminal activity among Roma populations, just as they do among other populations living in poverty.

The question that matters is what kind of theft we are talking about, and why it happens.

Our piece “Are the Roma Thieves?” is included in the e-book we published about the most common stereotypes against the Roma and the reality behind them.

When the Truth Does Not Sound True

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“The Roma steal to survive”

In our previous piece, Pepi put it very simply: “The Roma steal to survive and to feed their children. It’s as simple as that.”

That sentence sounds shocking if you take it out of context. It is also not a universal statement. Most poor Roma do not steal. But there is a particular kind of petty theft that exists at the intersection of poverty and desperation, and in communities where poverty has lasted for generations, people understand exactly what that intersection looks like.

A family needs money today. There is no work, no income, all usual ways of making money (selling material for scrap, for example) have dried up. The children are starving or someone needs medical attention or the loan shark you borrowed from is now threatening to rough you up. All of these scenarios are everyday reality for the Balkan Romani community living in poverty. Of course, this doesn’t make all of them steal.

But some of them look at one thing sitting somewhere that can become cash right now.

It is usually not a life-changing amount of money. That is almost the point.

A phone, a bicycle, a golden necklace. Something that can be sold and turned into food, a paid loan for the week, medicine, or whatever else is needed right now.

In our older article, we wrote about what is and is not considered acceptable within the community itself. Theft from someone who is visibly vulnerable is viewed very differently. The idea is that you take from a source perceived as abundant, and you do not deliberately destroy someone who has nothing.

Of course, if you are the one stolen from, it is infuriating. You paid for something with your own money that you earned, probably even had to save for it, or even worse: it was something of sentimental value. A golden bracelet from your grandmother, a gift from a spouse. And then someone just takes it.

The biggest mismatch between this sentiment and the world-view of the Roma living in poverty, is that it doesn’t matter if you can restore it. If you are employed and can save again and buy it again, then you are already so much better off than the poor person that you are, from their perspective, living in a different Universe. If your phone gets taken, you will not starve. Your children will not starve. Your knees will not be broken by a loan shark. And, above all, you can buy another phone. It will be an expense, but you can do it without it destabilising your entire household. This is how the Roma living in poverty see it.

What can be most infuriating for an outsider, on an emotional level, is the question of sentimental value. The Roma don’t attach sentimental value to possessions and perhaps that makes it so much easier for the desperate Roma living in poverty to steal something that, to the victim, is much more cherished due to its history than to its monetary value.

To the Balkan Roma, a wedding band means nothing. The bond between husband and wife is not governed by a piece of metal. Even when the Roma buy and exchange wedding bands for a wedding ceremony, they don’t think twice about pawning them when they need money. A golden bracelet or ring from an older relative is also seen as valuable, but not as something to hold onto. Of course they hold onto it if they can, but if they need money urgently and don’t have other ways to obtain money, they pawn it with the full knowledge that the relative would have wanted them to. This is why gold is given as a gift to relatives and children in Balkan Romani communities. Not for its beauty but for survival.

So again, stealing something of monetary value has nothing to do with its sentimental value, when the question of survival overwhelms everything else.

The sacrifice

A man who steals risks prison. He knows it. Petty theft is like gambling. You roll the dice, you take the risk, and sometimes you lose.

Except that the thing you lose is not money; it is freedom. And, very quickly, it becomes something else too. Your family.

The people we are talking about here are overwhelmingly men because in these families the provider role is overwhelmingly placed on men. They are the people who are expected to bring something home. There is enormous internal pressure attached to that. When there is nothing, the pressure does not politely wait for another employment opportunity.

And when a man reaches the point of taking the risk of petty theft, he is gambling not only with his freedom but with his ability to continue being the person who provides for his family. This is a very conscious risk and one not taken lightly. It is absolutely seen as a sacrifice both by the person stealing and by his family and community.

This is something that is difficult to see from the outside. The man goes behind bars but his wife still has to survive without him. His children still need everything children need. But if the family can, they will also spend money on the man in prison. They will bring him essentials, cigarettes, they will try to make sure he has what he needs.

And he knows it.

This is why, when imprisoned men talk about what hurts, it is not always simply “I am in prison.” It is also “I am supposed to be the one bringing something home.” They hurt much more about the children and wife struggling outside. The sorrow comes from the reversal: the provider has become a burden.

What happens to the family outside is a much heavier verdict to the inmate than the loss of freedom they experience inside.

The men who steal too little

In Bulgaria, police and prison guards have used the derogatory term kokoshkari for Roma thieves, literally “chicken-men,” referring to men who steal chicken or small things. The implication is that they are pathetic little thieves, not serious criminals.

Jan Yoors talks about the same phenomenon in “The Gypsies”.

The Roma have always been seen not just as thieves but as thieves who steal too little. This, as we illustrated, is in accordance with their value system. They deliberately do not take too much.

Ironically, this is only met with greater contempt by society. Bigger or white-collar crimes, conspiracies, bank robberies: this inspires curiosity and countless movies. We enjoy these movies too, make no mistake. The appeal here is the enormous intellect required to pull off something grand, to outsmart the “system.”

A Roma living in poverty, however, stealing a phone: this is seen as pathetic. So they deserve all the punishment they can get. Right?

Of course, petty theft requires a lot more courage than a grand conspiracy you elaborately prepare for; it requires incredible “street smarts”, and we can argue that both the sacrifice and stakes are bigger. But this is not about defending petty theft. It is about highlighting the disproportionate zeal of the justice system to punish and punish people who try to survive in poverty, and society’s disdain for crimes that are more annoying than life-altering.

What happens behind prison walls

Once you go behind bars, you enter a very different world, with its own hierarchy and survival rules.

The Roma overwhelmingly belong to the Hustlers. Street-smart, quick on their feet, witty, and often forcibly recruited by the Bosses, the ones imprisoned for serious crimes and with ties to organised crime.

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  What do you believe about the Roma?

  This question sits at the heart of When The Truth Does Not Sound True, a collection of essays that dismantle the myths surrounding Europe’s most stereotyped people.

  Co-written by cultural consultant and writer Martina Mustafova together with Pepi Mustafov, a Romani insider with lived experience of poverty, displacement, and survival, this book offers rare insight from lived experience.

  Across these essays, behaviors often dismissed as “lying,” “theft,” “aggression,” or “irresponsibility” are placed back into their real context: structural exclusion, chronic insecurity, and tight-knit tribal systems built to endure them. What emerges is not a defense, but an explanation—one that asks the reader to reconsider where moral judgment begins, and where it quietly replaces understanding.

  The book moves fluidly between cultural analysis, memoir, and psychological observation, revealing a social logic that often sounds implausible to outsiders precisely because it is never explained to them.

  In addition to the essays, the book includes nearly 20 full-color photographs taken from within Pepi’s tribe which turn it into a form of visual ethnography, grounding the text in lived reality.

  This is a book about how stereotypes are born, why they persist, and what they obscure.

  For readers interested in: Romani culture beyond headlines and clichés; Anthropology, social psychology, and lived-experience writing

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• A Crown for Every Woman (priced at 24,99 EUR)

  This photo book documents the makeup and hairstyling traditions of women from one of Sofia’s largest Romani communities.

  The women featured in these pages belong to the same extended tribe, connected through family, marriage, friendship, and neighborhood ties. While each woman expresses her own personality and style, common aesthetic traditions can be seen throughout the photographs: carefully sculpted hairstyles, dramatic eye makeup, elaborate jewelry, decorative hairpieces.

  The stylist behind every transformation in this book is Asen, a member of the community and a relative of many of the women he works with. His salon is located in Zaharna Fabrika, where this community has lived for over a century. For years, women from the community have come to him before weddings, engagements, baptisms, birthdays, and other important occasions.

  To an outsider, some of these women may appear dressed like brides or beauty queens. Yet many are neither. They are sisters, cousins, friends, mothers, daughters, and guests. The care devoted to their appearance is not reserved for a single central figure. Beauty, celebration, and self-presentation are shared values, and like we love to say, “the Roma share their thunder.”

  This idea inspired the title of the book. In these communities, a crown does not belong only to the bride. It can belong to a guest, a sister, a cousin, a mother, or a friend. The desire to look beautiful, to mark an important occasion, and to present oneself with pride is not limited to one woman at the center of the celebration. It belongs to everyone.

  The photographs in this book are not intended to present a single standard of beauty. Rather, they document a living aesthetic tradition.

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Love,

Martina and Pepi

Martina’s very first contact with the Romani community of what would end up to be her future husband Pepi, was in a cold February day in 2020. The community had suffered the demolition of their homes, and were now placed in the administrative building of a crisis center. Martina was part of a NGO who went there, for their first visit, to organise educational activities for the children.

It shaped up to be a complete failure. The room designated by the director of the center was locked. Nobody was there from the admin team to unlock it or help gather the children. The few Roma in sight, already having seen all kinds of clowns and show-offs waltz in under the banner of “charity”, were completely uninterested in the volunteers and whatever agenda they had. Still, the organisers were determined to gather some children, so they stopped one of the mothers walking down the corridor—Maria, one of Pepi’s many adult nieces—and asked her for help.

This was in the in the damp and dark corridors of the crisis center building. Several children were gathered around Maria and looking at the volunteers with curiosity, but otherwise the corridors felt empty. The only sign that 30+ Romani families were housed in the building was the vibration of a powerful bass system coming from one of the higher floors.

“We have prepared activities for the children,” explained the organiser. “Can we gather them?”

“I can’t gather all the children,” Maria said.

“Could we talk to some of the other parents?” Asked the organiser.

“No,” Maria said and looked at the volunteers as if they were crazy. “They are celebrating.”

Naturally, for the volunteers, a “celebration” was no reason at all to not send the children to read some books for one hour. The bass that seemed to be shaking the entire building was enough indication that this was not a children-style celebration.

But Maria cut short any attempt to interrupt the adults who were “celebrating”. And many months later, when Martina started getting to know the community as Pepi’s partner and not as part of a volunteer group, she learned that this type of protective wall always surrounds the people who sit down “to drink." Maria’s wording, “They are celebrating” was actually a softened and diplomatic framing, meant for outsiders. Among the community, she’d have used the much more direct “They are drinking.”

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“He’s drinking” is enough of a statement among the Roma to indicate to someone that the person in question is not to be disturbed. Whatever business you have with them, it can wait. It doesn’t matter how important it is to them or to you.

The drinking itself is very extreme to outsiders who are more accustomed to having a glass of wine or 1-2 beers every now and then, or a drink to unwind in the evening. The Balkan Roma are “all or nothing” about drinking. They go long stretches without drinking and, actually, consider a single glass of alcohol every day to be the unhealthy thing. But when they “sit down to drink”, they get drunk, most times even black-out drunk.

What outsiders can glimpse from these “celebrations” is usually met with severe judgement. The music is always loud and, quite literally, causing the walls to shake. If there are framed pictures on the wall or glasses arranged on shelves, they will fall. More often than not, police gets involved because surrounding (non-Roma) neighbours complain about the noise and loudness. Very often — all too often from the perspective of a non-Roma outsider — fights break out during these “celebrations.” One moment people are dancing, the next: a physical fight erupts.

Due to the big amounts of alcohol, the severity with which people consume it, the deafening music, and the physical violence that happens with high frequency, Romani gatherings are viewed as extreme, savage, and wild.

For sure, to an outsider, the way the Balkan Roma consume alcohol is not how alcohol is supposed to be consumed.

But outsiders see only the loudness: the music, the fighting, all the things that bubble up to the surface and reach the eyes of other people. What actually lies beneath this surface is the exact opposite of what outsiders assume about Romani drinking culture.

The Roma approach drinking with reverence, almost like a spiritual ritual. It goes way beyond “unwinding” and “fun”, although these element play a part too. But in the context of generational poverty and complete, centuries-long social isolation, for Balkan Romani communities alcohol opens the door to a state of complete surrender. They do not consume alcohol for the sake of alcohol or getting drunk, it is with the very conscious purpose of emotional processing. In Romani communities that experience a lot of trauma but have no access to what mainstream society would call “mental health support”, there is an entire culture around not suppressing emotions but channeling and releasing them.

There are four ingredients for this release and they are all meant to remove psychological defensive barriers so you can get in touch with your emotions, let them pass through you, and release them so they don’t poison you. This way, you can face another day.

The first ingredient is the loud Romani music that, through the bass and rhythm, puts you in a state of trance.

Number two is the dancing, the looked-down-upon “kyuchek” which, at least for the Roma in our geographical region, is entirely located in the hips: one of the key areas in the body where “trauma is stored”, or to be more precise, where trauma causes tightness in the body.

Number three is the alcohol, the best and fastest way to lower defences and inhibitions.

And number four is the most important ingredient: The community. The people you drink with. Everything else falls apart very quickly if this ingredient is even a little bit off.

Entering this space is sacred for the Balkan Roma. It is not something you do lightly, it is treated with reverence, and it is very fiercely protected both by the people participating in the “drinking” and by the surrounding community: they deliberately block access to the drinking relatives. The intensity and sacredness is why, to the Roma, drinking every day (even if “just a bit”) is non-sensical. Ironically, this is also why fights break out: the zero tolerance to disturb the process that is unfolding beneath the surface. But the nuance here is big and largely invisible to outsiders.

What are the Roma “celebrating”?

Balkan Romani gatherings and celebrations always carry incredible intensity. The “fun” part is unmatched by anything you can encounter in a mainstream context. The music and dancing, even if you are just observing and not participating, can feel otherworldly. The thing is, you have to be inside it. When you are outside, the bass and shaking do feel very disruptive. You might wonder how are the people there not getting headaches and what is even the point when you can’t hear your own thoughts let alone what the person next to you is saying.

When you are inside it though, you get it. The music puts you in a very specific internal state, and the surrounding people are there to protect this state.

Of course there is conversation, jokes, and laughter at the beginning of every gathering. However, gradually, the music gets louder, the bottles get empty, and the celebration reaches its peak, where things move beyond conversation.

You can get an idea of this fun part of Romani parties from some of the clips we’ve posted on our social media: here, here, here, and here.

Then there is the flip side, the deeper reality unfolding during these gatherings. When you combine the music, the alcohol, and the community, you open the door to your own inner reality.

For the Balkan Roma, the good and the bad, the happiness and the sorrow, all exist together. You don’t hide one to acknowledge the other. Anything that has been weighing on you, consciously or not, will surface during these celebrations. It could be something that happened recently or something from long ago. It doesn’t matter and nobody questions it or judges you for it. If you start crying about your father who passed away when you were a kid 20 years ago, nobody will even think to imply you should have “gotten over it by now.” The community understands very well how grief works. And if anyone is crying while others are laughing or dancing, nobody would think to tell you to “cheer up” or “not spoil the mood.” The “mood” can be anything that comes to the surface, not something that should be artificially maintained.

So, when we say “celebration”, we mean something very different from what mainstream culture considers “celebration.” In the mainstream context, you celebrate a specific person or occasion, the attention is dedicated there, and you are meant to keep your focus and your mood at this exact level. For the Balkan Roma, the occasion is the opening gate for the gathering. A wedding, a birthday party, or the welcoming of a newborn are the three big reasons for a big Romani event. The community makes a big deal to honour the person being celebrated, and this can last hours. But it is also understood that after a certain point, the celebration moves into a different domain.

When Martina and the volunteer group first entered the crisis center in February 2020, there was no wedding or birthday. So what were the Roma celebrating? The answer is, it doesn’t really matter.

The “occasion” could be anything. Someone got their salary today. Someone started playing music and people just naturally started gathering around them. Or, simply, someone felt the need for the experience of a catharsis: so they pawn their phone, buy alcohol, and gather a couple of people to drink with. Then the day, evening, and night begin unfolding and taking a life of their own.

Why do fights break out at Romani parties?

Let’s begin with an obvious but necessary distinction. The Roma do not enjoy fights at celebrations. They consider it distasteful and, if a fight happens, they consider the night to have been ruined. Contrary to what outsiders might assume, a fight is not what the Roma are itching for when they start drinking and listening to loud music.

There is an unspoken understanding among Balkan Roma that when a group of people is drinking together, a shared atmosphere of vulnerability emerges. Emotions run deep and you never know what the person next to you might be going through in this exact moment. They could be laughing, grieving, processing a fight with a spouse or a child—just anything really.

What is difficult to put into words about Balkan Romani gatherings is the sense of absolute fluidity that runs through the room, as if every person is carried by a wave. If someone is drunk enough to lose their balance, at least two people will jump up, steady them, and sit them down. There is a constant current of instinctive care.

And the golden rule is, you do not bother anyone. You do not tease, do not provoke, do not disrupt. If you do that, you will face a strong wave of resistance.

For Martina, the first time she witnessed that was at a birthday celebration with Pepi’s tribe back in October 2021. She was sitting next to one of Pepi’s adult nephews, Urko, when a group of people from a related tribe showed up, arriving two hours after everyone else. One of them made a comment how there was no room left, even though people were shuffling to make room. He kept making pointed comments, basically mocking the hosts for the very small space they had. Martina only knows this now because Pepi translated it afterwards, but at the time, what she saw was people increasingly getting sharper and sharper. They spoke firmly to the guy, then a few of them raised their voice. All of this, it turned out, was them warning him to stop pressing and to sit down and join them or leave. When he didn’t, one of the men stood up, his body language screaming that he was ready to fight. Everyone around him started shouting “Stop, stop”, so that he doesn’t start a physical altercation. During the entire time this was unfolding, Urko had placed his hand around Martina’s shoulder, knowing full well that she can’t understand a word and is witnessing an escalating argument without having any context. It was a reassurance, a non-verbal “Don’t worry.” Finally, both men sat down and the evening continued without problems. But the tribe had made sure that no humiliating comments are made towards the hosts and that they would be treated with basic decency.

It is this decency, the minimum form of respect for another’s comfort and peace of mind, that the Roma protect fiercely during gatherings when inhibitions are lowered and emotions run deep. They do not tolerate mocking, humiliation, or provocation.

Fights erupt only as a last resort. Only when someone’s provocations have not been stopped by any argument, any boundary, any warning, any attempts to defuse the situation. Even if one person is quick to attempt a physical fight, the others would restrain him. Fights are avoided at all cost.

The difference between (Balkan) Romani culture and mainstream culture is that, as much as the Roma do not want any fighting, they would never swallow insults and provocations just to keep the peace. They will immediately draw a boundary and warn you a hundred times before anyone is hit, but they will not just sit and “take it” to maintain an artificial good mood. In mainstream culture, we are accustomed to tolerating rude behaviour and insults. The Roma are not.

What the Roma consider “crossing the line” with alcohol

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All who made me cry, sings Džansever Dalipova in her song Sar ka dav akaja rat me vilestar me,

may their fortune leave them,

may their eyes not see,

may their hands not hold.

Oh God, hear my curse

and pour it on them.

Do not give them life.

If you think this is intense, wait for the chorus of the song.

May fire burn them,

and turn them into dust.

May the wind scatter them,

and cover them with earth.

The protagonist in the song is a pregnant woman who, if you read between the lines and into the implications of the lyrics, was abused by her husband and his parents. “They”, in the song, are her husband and in-laws, the people who wronged her and repeatedly hurt her.

In her actions, she is not vengeful. The song implies she leaves forever, and they will suffer in her absence. But in her words, thoughts, and heart, she calls upon divine justice, upon God to balance the scales.

“God will take care of it,” a young woman from Pepi’s Romani community said recently after a conflict escalated and she felt wronged. “My tears will fall upon them.”

What she meant was, all the tears she cried will, through divine justice, be returned in the form of equal suffering to the people who wronged her.

In an article from a few years ago, we mentioned how one of the more timid women in the community was pushed past her breaking point when an elder man gifted a dog to her young daughter, and then soon after, took the dog back.

A few months after we published this article, the elder man did in fact pass away. And while neither we nor the wider community believe it was Yoanna’s words that caused his death, the implicit understanding here is that the suffering he caused through his cruelty to a small child compounds the grief of his loved ones. The child’s tears are added to their tears. Their pain, already heavy, becomes even heavier. What stopped his wife in her tracks was exactly this sentiment: he crossed a big boundary, needlessly broke the heart of a child, and now the mother’s wrath invoked divine justice. So the pain will find its way back.

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Do these curses carry actual power?

“A Romani blessing always comes true,” says Pepi, as does anyone from his community if you ask them. The thing is, Romani blessings are not given lightly. For a Roma to bless you with their heart, it has to be earned and it has to come from their soul, which is why it carries power. It cannot be forced, so even if someone blesses you in words, these words carry no power if the soul is not behind them.

Same goes for a Romani prayer.

One time, while working abroad in what turned out to be a scam summer berry-picking gig, a group of men from the tribe got lost. They were stranded in a remote location, tried to walk back to the nearby village, but lost their way. This was in a Scandinavian country, they did not know the language, could not read any signs, and there was no one around to ask, even if they found a way to ask through the language barrier. Left without any other possible course of action, they gathered in a circle and did a “Romani prayer.” Which is exactly like any prayer, as long as it is pure, comes from the soul, and above all, with unwavering faith in God. Soon, a guy in a small truck passed them by, stopped, and gave them a ride to a village nearby. From there, they found the police station who connected them with the embassy and soon they were on their way home. Did the prayer bring the truck? They believe it did.

What is important to understand about this and most Balkan Romani communities is that they encounter vastly bigger challenges than people from mainstream society, and they encounter them more frequently. Due to generational poverty and racism, the obstacles in their life are constant and relentless. And they don’t try to pray their way out of those. They face them, they hustle, they try to outmanoeuvre, or climb out, or fight. A prayer, a “Romani prayer,” which means that you stop, you connect with your soul, you connect with God—this comes when there is literally no visible way out, no hope. When only God can help.

They believe it works, because they know they have already exhausted all options conceivable to a human.

Just as a Romani blessing carries power when it comes from the soul, and when a Romani prayer carries power when it comes from the soul, a Romani curse can carry power too.

Of course, the same caveat applies. A curse is true only if the balance of scales in the human realm has been profoundly disrupted. So only God can restore the balance. A curse can sound very cruel, but in its essence, it invokes justice, karmic balance. It comes only after a deep wound has been inflicted, and that is usually a wound that cannot be healed.

Soon after part of the quarter (or mahala) where Pepi’s community had lived for a century was demolished, the mother of the district mayor who oversaw the demolition passed away.

The people in the community believe this was his natural punishment from God. Losing his mother after he destroyed their homes. The Roma believe firmly in divine justice. Human justice is something they mistrust, as well as human-designed concepts of justice. For example, even though many Romani communities live in poverty, they don’t believe a restoration of divine justice would be an economic rebalancing. Justice, to the Roma, is what touches the heart: your children, your wife or husband, your parents and siblings. This is why the loss of a mother, in the eyes of Pepi’s community, equals the destruction of the homes of 60+ families. And the community believes that divine justice always finds its way.

A curse is, in essence, an invocation of this type of “natural law.” Urging God to restore balance. A recognition of one’s own pain and surrendering it to the sky.

So do Romani curses carry actual power? The Roma believe that even without the curse, if you profoundly wronged another person, the pain will return to you. A curse might speed this up, intensify it, make you feel the unmistakable correlation, make you regret your actions, but it will only work if you already wounded another’s soul.

The small, “everyday” curses in Romani life

The song that inspired this piece depicts what is, essentially, sacred rage. Anger that comes from deep, accumulated pain. These curses, the Balkan Roma believe, carry power.

But then there are other, “smaller” curses in Balkan Romani culture, which are used to let off steam, in the heat of conflict, but are understood to not carry weight.

“May fire burn your head,” is the most frequent one in Pepi’s community, sometimes with the added, “and melt you.”

The “May fire burn your head” curse gets tossed around daily in Pepi’s community. If conflicts get intense, the curses become very intense too. “May the truck drag you down the street,” one of the elderly women said to one of her brothers once, after he had gotten in conflict with her son. The truck in question was the garbage truck where her brother worked as part of the street cleaning job the entire community works in. She essentially wished upon him not only to get hit by the truck he rides on daily, but to be dragged by it down the busy boulevard in the neighbourhood.

This was understood both by him and by the wider community to be a “in the heat of the moment” curse. They didn’t take it seriously, they allowed time for the emotions to naturally calm down. Eventually, it was all forgotten and he was not hit by the truck. Nobody believed she actually wanted harm to come to her brother. In her anger, she reached for the most damaging image she could think of, but the curse carried no power.

Another “everyday” curse, which would definitely be the most jarring to outsiders, is the unthinkable:

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Recently, we published a video on our Instagram profile, showing Vessi — the beautiful bride you see in the picture above — with her father leading the traditional “horo” dance at her wedding.

Some lady from Croatia left a comment which she subsequently deleted. It said: “At least other people in the Balkans wear normal wedding dresses.” That was in response to our caption that Vessi’s dress is pink, one of the three traditional colors in Balkan Romani weddings. And, pink is, we infer, “abnormal” in other, “normal” weddings. As we all know, only white is normal.

Of course, the white wedding gown is a very new, and Western, element of weddings here in the Balkans.

Here is what “normal” actually looked like, for centuries, in Balkan weddings.

Color is powerful and carries immense symbolic significance. Especially in a wedding: perhaps the most important ritual in every culture, a ritual of union and laying the foundations for the future.

And for the Roma, this understanding of the symbolism of color is very much alive in traditions not only centuries ago but also today. In fact, it is the gravitational center of every Romani wedding.

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The three colors

Traditional Balkan Romani weddings last for three days and the bride wears a different dress each day.

Considering the comment we quoted from the Croatian lady, we are amused to report that the wedding gown on the first day is… drum roll… white.

The symbolism? The same symbolism as in the “normal”, Western weddings. Purity and innocence.

But that is only on the first day and it signifies the beginning of the ceremony, the beginning of the journey. White is not meant to represent the bride in her entirety, it represents her first step into the union. In fact, getting married “only” in white is considered dangerous.

If the wedding stops at the white dress, it is a disservice to the bride. Is she something to be “claimed”? Something “pure and innocent” that disappears into a marriage?

Not in Romani weddings.

On the second day, after the first wedding night, the bride wears a pink dress. Pink symbolizes the drop of blood that alters the pristine white forever.

While the immediate interpretation here is obviously sexual, for the Roma the symbolism of the pink dress goes much deeper than simply “consummating a marriage.” In Romani culture, casual sexual relationships are frowned upon and once a couple crosses this threshold, they are immediately referred to as “married.”

When people in Pepi’s tribe talk about past relationships, they say “I was married to her” or “I was married to him.” This does not mean they were legally married. It also does not mean that they had a wedding ceremony like the one Vessi had in the photos we’re sharing here. Weddings are expensive and not everyone can afford one.

So what makes two people “married” then? If there is no document, no ceremony, nothing and no one to declare them married?

Living together. Embodied reality. Falling asleep next to each other, waking up next to each other, figuring out what to eat together, sharing the big and small joys and struggles and sorrows of life.

In other words, walking side by side together. Facing life together. Not as a fantasy, but in real life.

“After all, it’s my shoulder you fall asleep on,” Pepi said once to Martina in a conversation we were having about a conflict Martina was experiencing. With this one simple statement, he communicated: I stand by you, I am your partner. The words he chose to communicate this, in typical Romani fashion, were of embodied intimacy, way beyond the sexual. Two people, joined together, in body and spirit both.

This is the symbolism of the pink dress. This is why the pink dress carries greater weight in a wedding than the pure, innocent, ethereal white dress.

On the third and final day, Balkan Romani brides wear a blue gown.

You might have noticed that the pictures we share of weddings in Pepi’s tribe are all outdoors. Even weddings that take place that are celebrated indoors in a restaurant always, always begin outdoors.

Under the open sky. Hence, the blue dress.

On the final day, the Roma call upon the only authority, the only witness that truly matters. Not a government officiant, or a priest, or a human being in any kind of capacity.

God.

The “modern” iteration of the Balkan Romani wedding tradition

Nowadays, there are no weddings that last three whole days, at least not in communities like Pepi’s, stricken by generational poverty.

A wedding that takes place one single day alone puts an enormous financial strain on the parents. It either plunges them in debt or it eats up all their savings.

However, this is an expense they are all too happy to carry. In fact, they believe that this is what they are supposed to work for: setting a strong foundation for the next generation.

This sentiment is beautiful depicted in the song “O davuli”, which translates to “Oh, drums”.

So, instead of changing three wedding dresses over three days, the Roma fit the changing of the gowns within a single day of celebration.

Some can afford three gowns. The ones who cannot make sure that they have one gown in one of the primary colors, but the bride will change out of it into a more modest dress later in the celebration.

In Pepi’s tribe, the vast majority of wedding dresses are blue. The Roma choose the color of the final day for the main celebration and all the photos, the color that calls upon God and announces: this couple is now married.

A smaller number of brides choose pink, like Vessi in the most recent wedding we showed you.

And so far, in the past decade, only one bride has chosen white.

Julieta got married in a white gown. You’ll notice it was not pure white — it did not follow the Western style, but the Turkish tradition of adding a red belt around the waist: an echo of the Muslim roots of Pepi’s tribe, which the Bulgarian government forcibly Christianised in the 1970s and 80s.

Julieta wore the white gown for all the key rituals of the wedding: the “horo” dance with the tribe, the toasts, breaking of the bread, the blessings. Once this was all over, she changed into a blush pink satin robe adorned with a feathered trim.

Not a gown, not even a dress. But what mattered was that she transitioned from white to pink.

She announced: “I am now married, an embodied wife, not an innocent white flower to be plucked.”

We recently published a digital photo book: “A Crown for Every Woman” with stunning pictures showing the traditional Balkan Romani hairstyle and makeup techniques. To celebrate this new book, we are offering it together in a bundle with our first book: “When the Truth Does Not Sound True: Exploring Common Anti-Roma Stereotypes”. You can buy the photo book or the bundle by clicking on the green button below.

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Mainstream culture believes the Roma are too extravagant. When they decide to dress up, they really bring it.

Bright colors. Dresses that look like princess gowns. Glitter. Gold. Heavy jewelry, heavy make-up. Elaborate hairstyles and tiaras.

Here is one example. The picture below is from Vela and Nicky’s wedding. Vela is in the cream dress, Nicky: in the black glittery suit and neon sunglasses. Vela’s sister, Dancha, and her husband Trayan, are the maid of honor and best man, and they are dressed up in bright red. Vela and Nicky’s son, toasting to their champagne with an energy drink, is also wearing a suit.

But let us show you a couple of more pictures: from Dancha and Trayan’s wedding 3 years earlier.

Dancha is dressed like a goddess. The groom, Trayan, is in jeans and a yellow t-shirt with a printed skull. Nicky is in mismatching shorts and t-shirt, with a cowboy hat. Pepi, Dancha’s uncle and co-author of this article, is in a camouflage outfit.

And if you’re about to assume that “rules are more relaxed for men,” here are two more pictures. In them, you can see Nada joining the wedding procession and dancing, still in her work clothes from her street-cleaning job.

So, what is the dress code for Romani celebrations?

Nobody cares what you wear

In mainstream societies, there is an entire culture around dress codes and what is appropriate to wear for specific occasions. It’s a fascinating study in psychology to browse relationship forums (on Reddit, for example) and see how many friendships and familial ties break over who wore what to where.

Your clothes and general appearance determine how you’re received by your peers. If something is a little off, like messy hair or an out-of-date style, this is a flaw. You will be judged. In mainstream culture, that is.

In Romani culture, nobody cares. You can show up wearing a golden ring on every finger, a tiara, a gown, or a neon-glittery outfit. Or you can show up with an old t-shirt, a rip in your jacket, holes in your shoes, tangled hair.

It doesn’t matter.

The Roma only care that you are there. You. The fabric on your skin bears no importance.

The “rules” and social norms we take for granted in mainstream society when it comes to celebrations and big events start looking very restrictive and even a little petty if we compare them to how the Roma approach celebrations.

In Romani culture, there is no concept of “stealing one’s thunder.” The Roma enthusiastically join celebrations together, and it is, in fact, a custom to hold weddings on a beloved relative’s birthday.

The Roma are not offended by what you wear. They neither feel slighted if you’re underdressed nor outshined if you’re overdressed. They don’t have rules about what clothes suit what age and what figure. They are not offended by what gift you bring or if you bring a gift at all. They are not offended if you announce big news from your life on someone else’s “day” or “event.”

The only thing that will offend them is if you don’t show up.

Your presence and nothing else is what signals to them that you love and respect them.

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So why dress up at all?

Well, why not? If you feel like it and you can afford it in this moment, why not have fun?

Here’s a secret wisdom that the Roma have held for over a thousand years. The lack of attachment to material things and to symbols of status or prestige allows you to enjoy them more.

The Roma enjoy wearing golden jewlery but they don’t think twice about pawning it if they need cash. They swap clothes with each other all the time. There is not a shred of possessiveness in their bones about “things.” So they are free of all the anxiety that comes from attachment. They’re only left with the joy of using these “things” in the present moment.

The pictures below are from a wedding that took place in the summer of 2023. You can see Pepi and his sister Nana, who’s wearing the same dress her daughter Dancha wore when she was maid of honor the previous summer. And you see Pepi rocking a suit-jacket “for the laughs”, borrowed from the father of the bride, to take this picture with his eldest daughter.

We recently published a digital photo book: “A Crown for Every Woman” with stunning pictures showing the traditional Balkan Romani hairstyle and makeup techniques. To celebrate this new book, we are offering it together in a bundle with our first book: “When the Truth Does Not Sound True: Exploring Common Anti-Roma Stereotypes”. You can buy the photo book or the bundle by clicking on the green button below.

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What about the wedding dress?

At a Romani wedding, everyone can show up in rags but the bride. The bride will always, always be dressed up.

But this has nothing to do with vanity or appearances.

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Balkan Romani women don’t do “understated” when they celebrate. They go the opposite way. They move like royalty.

The stunning portrait you see above is of Julietta, niece of co-author of this page Pepi Mustafov, on her wedding day at the stylist studio. Already a natural beauty, Julietta’s features were not overpowered by the heavy makeup and jewellery. On the contrary, she shined even brighter than usual. Like all her female relatives, she carried the crown and the beauty with her head held high.

But if you assume this is “only” a bridal look in Pepi’s tribe, you’d be mistaken. This is the style that women carry not only when they are the center of a celebration but also when they attend it. You can be the mother, the sister, a cousin, or any kind of “guest” of any kind of celebration: wedding, birthday, the birth of a new child. You can be 15 or 65.

It doesn’t matter.

You can show up looking like a Queen.

The studio

All women from Pepi’s tribe go to a single stylist: a member of the tribe, a relative called Asen. He is the artist behind every princess look of every celebration in this community. His studio is located in the Zaharna Fabrika neighbourhood, in close vicinity to the Romani quarter that was bulldozed to dust last year after having been the home of this community for over a century.

Through celebrations, weddings, births, and demolitions, evictions, and institutional abuse, women of all ages in the tribe go to Asen’s studio.

And Asen always delivers the signature Balkan Romani look.

The hair

The foundation of the Balkan Romani style is height and volume. Hair is lifted, shaped, and secured into forms that create a strong silhouette visible from every angle.

These styles, from the updos to the cascading curls, are both elaborate and strong. When women have their hair done like this, they are not planning to sit at a table and barely move. They are planning to dance their heart out, and their hair always stays intact.

The crowns and tiaras

A hair ornament is a must. Even if it is a single thin tiara, it will have sparkle: gems, metal, and boldness.

The eyes

Shimmer, glitter, and metallic pigments are central features of Balkan Romani makeup. Applied across the lid and framed by dark liner, they create depth, contrast, and luminosity.

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There are fundamental principles in this style, but it is always applied to each woman’s individuality. There is always the unique spark that shines brightest amid the jewellery, makeup, and curls.

We created a 30+ page photo book as a celebration of the Balkan Romani Queen makeup and hair style of Pepi’s tribe, where you can find:

• Several pages of photographs and descriptions of the hairstyle, hair ornaments, and makeup principles.

• 15+ transformation pictures (before-and-after shots).

• A “Generations” chapter showcasing the thread of this style from young girls to elderly women.

You can buy the book at the link below. Paying subscribers receive it as free gift (scroll further down).

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On May 16th, 1944 something extraordinary happened. An uprising at Auschwitz which sent the armed Nazi soldiers running away to safety.

On one hand, the uprising was successful. Nobody was killed in the gas chambers that night. And the order was for all 6,000 Roma and Sinti what they referred to as the “Gypsy Family section” to be “liquidated” in order to clear space for a new transport of prisoners.

On the other hand, the success was temporary —because the Nazis found another way to liquidate the Roma and Sinti prisoners. It took almost 3 months and a lot of manoeuvring until there were only children, sick, and elderly people left in the “Gypsy Family Section” for the Nazis to feel safe enough to complete their massacre. Though even then, the Roma and Sinti did not go out without a fight.

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To know what is coming

On the evening of May 16th, over 50 armed SS soldiers arrived in lorries at the designated Romani section in Auschwitz-Birkenau, following orders to transport the 6,000+ people inside to the gas chambers. They ordered the prisoners out, but nobody stepped out.

The prisoners knew what awaited them. Some records indicate that earlier, they had been warned by a Polish clerk working at the camp. The order trickled down to the block leaders.

But even before that, they knew. Even if they didn’t know when, they knew what.

At some point in the spring of 1944, all Russian Roma were dragged out of the “Gypsy Family Camp” and the other Roma were told it was due to a smallpox infection. A quarantine, to protect the others from being infected.

On May 16th, this was the plan for the remaining Roma.

But this time, they knew.

Facing certain death

After months of living in horrific conditions, enduring starvation, disease, and forced labor, the Roma knew full well that the odds were not in their favour. They were malnourished prisoners about to face off armed soldiers.

But what else could they do? Just walk over to the gas chamber?

Never.

Here in the Sofia Romani communities, we see this exact same spirit when someone points a gun at a Roma. They don’t run, knowing full well you can’t outrun a bullet, they step forward with anger and fire. They face it, they are ready to fight. In this video we posted some time ago, you see a Roma man shouting “Come on! Shoot!” at a police officer who threatens him and his family with a gun.

Reading about the Roma’s reaction at Auschwitz when they learned they’ll be rounded up and “liquidated”, doesn’t surprise us at all. It is the only thing they could have done: resist.

The prisoners broke into an equipment warehouse and armed themselves with hammers, pickaxes and shovels. They took apart the wooden sections of the bunks they slept on and used the wood to make weapons. They took rocks, too. They went inside the barracks and barricaded themselves.

And then they waited.

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Lights at Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the evening of May 16th, 50+ SS soldiers arrived at the “Gypsy Family Camp” in trucks, armed with rifles and guns, and accompanied by German shepherds. They shouted orders at the Roma and Sinti prisoners — to get out.

Nobody stepped out.

The SS soldiers grew angry. SS-Obersturmführer Johann Schwarzhuber went from barrack to barrack and banged on the doors.

It was clear that the Roma were resisting and all the other prisoners were witnessing it.

So what did the armed, trained, guarded-by-dogs Nazi soldiers do?

They turned around, got into their trucks, and drove off.

The Romani prisoners were ready for a fight. The SS soldiers were not.

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The liquidation of the “Gypsy Camp”

The Nazis got what they wanted, eventually. On the evening of August 2, almost three months later, they arrived again in trucks, carrying guns and rifles, surrounded by German shepherds. This time, they succeeded in dragging the Roma to the gas chambers.

But why did they take almost 3 months?

Because first, they carefully picked out about 1,500 strong and able-bodied men and sent them to labor camps outside Auschwitz. Then they continued brutalising the remaining prisoners, sent children to Dr. Mengele for his experiments, and let people succumb to disease and starvation. On August 1, again, about 1,400 young men were picked out and transferred out to labor camps.

On August 2, there were less than half Roma at the “Gypsy Family Camp” than there were on May 16th. Less than 3,000. All of them women, children, elderly and sick people.

Safe enough for the SS soldiers.

Still, this time they were not 50 — they were a few hundred.

But even with all this preparation, the SS found no lambs to drag to the slaughterhouse.

May 16th is commemorated as Romani resistance day, marking the first, the successful uprising.

August 2nd is commemorated as Romani Holocaust Remembrance Day, because this is when the “Gypsy Camp” was finally, to use the Nazi term, “liquidated.”

But August 2nd was also Resistance Day. The Roma were fewer and weaker than on May 16th. But they still barricaded themselves. They still fought back. They still gave the Nazis hell and made them struggle and fight the entire night.

So on both May 16th and August 2nd, let’s remember the Romani fire which made “the whole of Birkenau light up” even in the face of cruel, genocidal death.

The arrival of spring is among the biggest holidays here in the Balkans. It’s celebrated as St. George’s Day by Christians and as Hıdırellez by Muslims. Here in Bulgaria, we also hold military parades on St. George’s Day as he’s the patron of our army. Similarly in Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia, this is a big day.

And yet, this is not what it’s most known as.

Here in the Balkans, despite military parades and other displays of pride and tradition, St. George’s Day remains the biggest Romani holiday.

What makes it the Romani’s holiday? The tradition has pagan roots and is followed both in the Christian and Muslim world. It did not originate from the Romani, nor do they claim that it did. The customs and rituals followed by the Romani don’t differ much from what other, non-Roma, households do to mark this day.

So what makes this so distinctly a Roma holiday?

When traditions come to life

The care, reverence, and faith that our ancestors infused in traditions centuries ago, still pulse in Roma culture.

In the mainstream world, we slowly let go of certain customs. We save ourselves the time and effort, we “modernize” our holidays. Here in Bulgaria, and especially in big cities such as Sofia, dedication to tradition is seen as “common”, something done in villages. A dead thing.

The Romani, however, have not abandoned their customs - not the ones they’ve brought with them and not the ones they’ve adopted throughout the centuries.

With time, as we “modernized” St. George’s Day, the Romani kept celebrating it with the same vigor as a few generations ago. Gradually, it became known as the biggest Roma holiday. Maybe at some point in the very distant past, the arrival of spring was the biggest holiday for the rest of us too?

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The innocence of the lamb

St. George’s Day is celebrated with a sacrifice. A lamb is killed with a swift, precise cut to the throat, washed and prepared, then roasted on a fire and eaten as the main dish. The liver, lungs, and intestines are also washed, cut into small pieces, and cooked with rice.

In modern days, few people actually kill a lamb. We buy lamb meat from the store and cook it - this part has remained a mandatory element of St. George’s Day even in the most modern of households.

But the Romani who still live in so-called “ghettos” - meaning, in small barracks, like a tiny village, isolated from the city around them - they still follow the tradition to its fullest.

Across all cultures, the lamb is sacrificed because of its innocence and purity. It only eats “clean food,” it is white and puffy as a cloud, and it is undeserving of the cruelty of the knife and the world around it.

When you have to take care of it, feed it, shelter it, and then cut its throat, cook, and eat it, the meaning of the word “sacrifice” carries more weight. The modern world is detached from this. Eating a lamb on St. George’s Day has become a culinary experience and nothing more.

The Romani, however, treat it with respect and reverence. And they make sure that the most innocent among them - their children - also understand the sacrifice.

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The divine sweetness of the sütlaç

The preparations for St. George’s Day start early. A wreath is prepared to put on the lamb’s head, an entire ritual takes place around its sacrifice, then the process of cleaning, preparing, and cooking it takes several hours.

But none of these steps can be taken until the sütlaç is prepared.

Sütlaç is a Turkish word for a very simple but delicious dessert. Boiled white rice with milk and (a lot of) sugar. The Romani call it “the lamb’s lifeforce” or “the lamb’s seed.” Like a lamb, the sütlaç is white and puffy, sweet and divine.

The reason it has to be prepared early, before everything else, is for it to be ready when the children wake up. It has to be the very first thing they eat on St. George’s Day.

Roma children grow up with this ritual. When they wake up on St. George’s Day, they run to the kitchen just like children everywhere run to the Christmas tree when they wake up on Christmas - they know that this divinely delicious and sweet breakfast awaits them. And they know the symbolism. They know it means that in a few hours, a being this sweet and divine will be sacrificed for their health and the health of everyone they love.

A recipe from Pepi

When we first moved in together, Pepi woke up on St. George’s Day and prepared a huge pot of sütlaç. The two of us weren’t able to eat all of it, of course. He was following his habit of cooking in large quantities. Back in the Roma quarters, he’d cook a big pot of sütlaç and hand it out in small cups to his own children and the children of families who haven’t been able to afford groceries. Naturally, even kids from families who had prepared their own sütlaç knew to run to Uncle Pepi’s house in the morning after they’d had their first breakfast at home. Some of them did the same on the first St. George’s Day he didn’t wake up in the Roma tribe: they caught the bus and were at our door just before noon.

He follows this tradition like clockwork. Today, he was up at 05:00 am, thirty minutes earlier than usual, so he could make the sütlaç before he went to work. “Make sure Elena eats some first, before anything else,” he told Martina about our daughter who was still a baby on last year’s St. George’s Day, and now, for the first time, can enjoy sütlaç as it was intended.

In Bulgarian households, this dish is cooked by first boiling the rice until it’s half ready, then adding milk and boiling it until it’s fully cooked, and then adding the sugar and boiling it some more. This makes for a delicious dessert with a very thick texture.

The Romani, at least in Pepi’s tribe, cook it in a slightly different way. First, you cook the rice but not until it is completely soft. It has to retain its shape. “You have to know you’re eating rice,” says Pepi. Then you heat up the milk and add it to the rice but you don’t boil them together. And then, you add the sugar. The result looks like this:

Whichever way you prefer to enjoy a sütlaç, we hope you try it and experience a moment of sweetness as we all welcome spring and new life on today’s Ederlezi.

An entire subsection of Balkan Romani music is dedicated to the humble devotion to God. In this song performed by Yasharka, we are invited to witness a powerful dialogue between a woman and God.

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“The Roma are unreliable.”

This stereotype, a rock-solid belief nestled deep in mainstream society’s perception of the Roma, underpins so many other beliefs: That the Roma are “good for nothing”, “lazy”, “unable to build”, to create, to take care of themselves or their children, to “participate in society” or “contribute” in a meaningful way. That there is “no point in helping them when they can’t even help themselves”.

The thing about this stereotype is that it is rooted in actual behavior. From our mainstream lens, according to our understanding of “reliability”, yes: many, many Roma are “unreliable”. And they have one thing in common (other than being Romani). But we’ll get to that in a bit.

They find a job — usually an undocumented construction gig or some other temporary thing. They give their phone number and tell the employer they can reach them there any time. They are ready to start tomorrow, today even. They are eager. Then you call, and the phone is off. It might be back on next week, it might never be on again. They might show up to work, they might not.

When they have a phone again, they will continue using it to hustle. They will respond to job ads, or advertise themselves on social media (even if it’s with “I’m available to donate blood” posts in designated groups). They’ll list their phone number with a “You can reach me here”. When you call, the phone will be off again.

You make plans together. “Let’s have coffee tomorrow”. “I’m coming over for dinner”. Or the plans can be not just to catch up, they might be to do something important. Go through eviction documents, visit the municipality, file urgent paperwork.

They will ask someone for help, set a time to meet, and not show up. Hence the “no point in helping them when they can’t help themselves” narrative.

In the summer of 2021, Martina spent most of her time accompanying people from Pepi’s tribe to municipalities and lawyer offices and helping with paperwork. It was always an unspoken standard that whatever time we agreed on, they’d arrive late. Very often, they wouldn’t show up at all. The only way to reach the person Martina was waiting for was almost never by phone, but by spotting someone else from the tribe in the vicinity and asking around. Sometimes, through word of mouth, the person would be tracked down. Other times, we’d look for ways to reschedule.

Last year, we had a very important online meeting in the evening that both of us had to attend: a meeting with Pixar and other members of the Cultural Board we are part of, to discuss a movie we are consulting on. So we asked Yoanna, one of the younger women in the tribe, to come over with her kids and watch our daughter. She had already done it once a few months prior for a previous Pixar meeting we had. Pepi confirmed and re-confirmed this second babysitting plan with Yoanna’s husband every single day for the two weeks leading up to our meeting. At the time, they worked together in street cleaning and while riding the truck to the depot Pepi would explain how important the meeting was and what it was about, and how we will have food and treats and games prepared for Yoanna and the kids. Yoanna’s husband, who is also Pepi’s nephew, swore up and down that we can count on them, and since Pepi and him are very close, he was proud that he’d able to help out his uncle.

The day of the meeting? You guessed it, nobody showed up.

One hour before the start of the Pixar video call, when Yoanna was supposed to have arrived already, we started our attempts to reach her. The phone she shares with her husband was off. Pepi tried calling the husband’s parents and brother. Phones were off. We had our meeting with our toddler climbing on us and drawing on our faces, but thankfully, everyone else on there took it with humor and kindness.

So, did Yoanna let us down? Did her husband let us down?

The easiest thing, in fact even the most natural thing, would be to think: yes, they did let us down. They didn’t even give us any warning that nobody’s coming. That same day, Pepi and the nephew were at work together, and the nephew said Yoanna and the kids were looking forward to tonight.

It would be easy to stretch out that line of thought further even. Did they lie? Did the nephew lie every day for two weeks when he promised Pepi that we can count on them?

It is very common for people in Romani communities such as Pepi’s to give big promises, make plans, look you in the eye and make you feel that this thing is happening. And then they flicker out. The thing doesn’t happen.

Do they lie? Are they flakey? Chronically unreliable?

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What is really going on under the surface

We were not mad at Yoanna. We were greatly inconvenienced, sure, but we knew we were not abandoned and were not lied to. We knew the reason we got stood up had nothing to do with how much Yoanna wanted to help us out or look after our daughter for a bit. We knew the intention was there.

So, what happened?

While we were trying to get hold of Yoanna or her husband, we called several close and distant relatives who were showing as online on Messenger. Pepi would ask them if they’ve seen Yoanna, if they knew whether she left or if she’s still there (in the building they are all living in). Eventually, after our Pixar meeting, one cousin called back and had the nephew’s father with him.

Turns out, Yoanna and her husband ran into a random guy who needed help throwing out furniture and other stuff from his apartment, and he offered them cash to take care of it. This is one of many side-gigs for Roma living in poverty, because it is quick cash (for back-breaking work) but most of all, it means you can keep the things that are being thrown out. Very often, the furniture, or whatever is tossed to the trash — washing machine, fridge, bags of clothes, bags of “useless, old” items — is not damaged at all, or damaged only a little bit. So the Roma keep it, or repair it, or resell it, or deconstruct it and sell it for scrap. For Yoanna and her husband, who live in a small room in a crisis center, share one bed with their two toddlers, and use his parents’ laundry machine, this could have meant a new bed, or a fridge, or new clothes, or anything really.

We asked Yoanna to babysit because she loves our daughter, our daughter loves her, she visits frequently with her kids and they all love playing together.

We needed help for an important meeting. And Yoanna was ready to help. But Yoanna lives in constant survival mode. Her husband lives in constant survival mode. They have two small children. So when an opportunity to make some money and maybe find something valuable came up, of course they took it. When you compare the two situations, which one was more important? More urgent?

They weren’t able to return to the crisis center in time to send any warning to us. Their phone was pawned earlier that day because they had no money for food.

Which is why many Roma have a phone one day and no phone the next. The phone is a disposable thing, very useful of course, but not more useful than food on the table. When they need cash, the phone is the first thing they pawn. Later, when they get cash through any one of the many ways they hustle, they take the phone out. And soon, they pawn it again. Often the SIM card inside gets lost and since it’s usually a pre-paid voucher, they just get a new one next time they have cash. So phone numbers change all the time.

Out of the countless examples we could have given, we used our story with the Pixar meeting to illustrate an urgent situation that most people in mainstream society could empathize with, because it’s closer to their reality. (And by “empathize”, we mean empathize with us.)

But try to picture it this way: We had an emergency, a blip in an otherwise stable existence, that ultimately proved to be nothing more than an inconvenience and had no negative consequences.

Yoanna and her husband live in a constant state of emergency. The person they ran into gave them a temporary reprieve from their emergency by opening the door to some cash and material items.

Regardless of whether Yoanna showed up that day or not, our daughter would still be fed, warm, safe, and so would we. That’s the norm for us and our daughter.

For Yoanna and her family, no single day is a guaranteed like this. Every day, they have to hustle to secure the basics.

So the desire, the intention: it was there. The promises were real. There were no lies. But one family needed two hours for a Zoom call, and the other family had just pawned their one phone to feed their children.

It’s two different realities. Two different galaxies.

Here, the question about “reliability” goes right out the window. Because while Yoanna was not “reliable”, in the conventional sense, for us, she was reliable in showing up to secure basic survival for her family.

The wobble of poverty

In August 2021, Martina visited the home base of ATD Fourth World, a movement that works with people and communities in poverty. It was in a beautiful village in Northern France, where Van Gogh had painted his heart out many years prior. It was through the ATD team in Bulgaria that Martina met Pepi’s Romani tribe to begin with.

There were many paintings, sculptures, books, pieces of art that depicted the realities of poverty. But one really stuck for Martina. By this point, she had experienced so many missed meetings and phones that go dead, that it felt both true and cathartic to see this reality depicted outside of the Romani context. It was exactly where it belonged. In the poverty context.

The sign under the sculpture says, in French:

This is how it feels. “When you barely touch it, it trembles.” And, “in poverty, a person cannot be stable”. Even if they want to be, even if they try to be, with their whole heart.

But we would add, there is a hidden strength and a hidden stability in this outer wobble.

Every time a person in poverty misses a call, an appointment, a promise, it is because they had to show up somewhere else. Somewhere more urgent. Isn’t this strength? Isn’t this the most radical kind of stability?

The Roma living in poverty flicker in and out of view—for us. Outsiders who live stable lives. When you walk through the curtain of poverty, you see them in full view. And they are not in collapse. They never stop showing up.

This is the third and final part of our series “Poverty Culture: Poverty behaviors misread as Romani character”.

Part 1 and 2 are here:

Next week, we will publish a translated Romani song.

If enjoyed the poverty culture theme, you can read more of our previous articles that touch explore it here:

And here, you can find our book When the truth does not sound true: Exploring common anti-Roma stereotypes.

Our paid subscribers can download it for free as a PDF below.

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“Brazen Gypsies Run a Vile Scheme With the Lives of Sick Bulgarians” reads the title of a 2019 article in a random media site. Other more established sites and media outlets use softer language but communicate the same kind of outrage. Namely, how dare they? How dare they ask for money when you are running in panic over a sick loved one?

Here in Bulgaria, when someone needs surgery, regardless of whether planned or emergency surgery, blood needs to be donated and registered under their name so that the hospital can maintain its blood bank quotas. Blood is scarce here. There is no culture of donating blood and our healthcare system has no money to import from abroad. So when someone is in for surgery, their relatives are on an urgent mission to find blood donors and, usually, they come up short. “During socialism,” one of the articles says, “it was almost like a national sport to donate every few months.” But now, nobody steps forward.

Except for the “brazen Gypsies.”

When you go to the center for transfusion, all articles say, you see them out front, walking around. They approach you and ask if you need blood.

So far, so good.

But then, you learn, they don’t just wait around all day and offer blood out of the goodness of their heart.

The blood has a price, in cold cash.

Is it a mafia?

“The blood mafia,” as some articles call it, does have several mafia elements. The actual blood donors are Roma living in poverty. They get paid between 25 and 50 EUR for a donation, when the “clients” are charged between 150 and 300 EUR, or even up to 500 EUR for rare blood types. The difference goes to the groups running this scheme and scouting for buyers.

But it is not pure profit. Big sums go to bribing the police to look the other way. This, though, is not reported in any of the articles. The reason we know it is because Pepi has been one of those people donating blood for 25 EUR, as have many, many other people in his community. And the groups running the whole “gig” are from a neighboring tribe.

Of course, they discourage individuals from offering their blood. It has to go through them. When we say “discourage”, this can mean many things. One article about a remote Northern location in Bulgaria says that a similar Roma group beats up other Roma who donate blood for cash outside of their channels. “Breaking both legs is the least they do,” the article says. We don’t know how true that is. Here, in Sofia, you get threats for banishment. “If you try this,” they say, “we will never contact you again and hook you up with clients.”

With social media, this threat doesn’t carry as much weight anymore because many people here use large designated Facebook groups to ask for blood donors, and a lot of Roma respond to these posts, cutting out the middle man.

And of course, they don’t ask for 25 EUR. They ask for 250 EUR.

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Is it extortion?

“Blood traders extort people in need,” cries the title of another article.

Let’s meditate on this word for a bit. Extortion.

Here is what the Merriam-Webster dictionary has to say about it.

Do the Roma obtain the money by force? No.

Do they obtain it with intimidation? No again.

With undue or illegal power? Again, no. Unless we consider having blood to be power, and even then, it would not be undue or illegal.

What about gaining with ingenuity and compelling argument?

Well, bingo.

Their argument is compelling.

The blood banks are low. The healthcare system is malfunctioning. For decades, the governments in power have had no budget or strategy about blood needed for surgeries.

And when people need blood, when they start calling friends and family, when they reach out on social media, nobody steps up.

“But they [the Roma] are not the only ones who offer blood in exchange for payment,” says an anonymous nurse in the extortion article. “Very often the blood is repaid with cash or some other service, even between relatives”.

So your own kin might ask you for money. But the author of the article, even after this quote, focuses on the Roma being the extorters.

The government fails you. Your community fails you. Your family fails you.

But a Roma living in poverty is expected to rise above it all? Make it alright? Be charitable to middle-class strangers in a racist culture, when their own children are starving at home? Literally bleed, in order to balance out a broken system and a broken society?

The Roma offer. They don’t pressure. They recognize that most people probably have nowhere else to look but they did not create the society that developed this lack.

Who gets to decide what a human body is worth, and under what conditions refusing to give it away for free becomes a crime of character?

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“Better to bleed than to steal”

For the person looking for blood donors, the situation is obviously about survival. So when a Roma person asks for money, they appear as a predator preying on the vulnerable.

“My mother needs urgent surgery, and you’re asking for money?”

It feels like extortion, regardless of whether it technically is or isn’t.

But for the Roma person, this is also about survival.

The Roma person’s mother might need medication. They may be out of food. A baby at home might need formula and diapers.

Pepi donated blood for 40 EUR in February 2022, when Martina was less than 2 months pregnant and with lapsed health insurance after having been out of a job for several months. It was a rough time for us and we had run out of cash when Martina started having severe pain. Without the health insurance, going to the doctor would require cash. So Pepi went out for a couple of hours and came back with 40 EUR, enough to cover a checkup. For Martina, new to these nuances of Romani life, this felt both dystopian and incredibly resourceful.

Pepi doesn’t know who he donated the blood for because it was through the organized group that handles the clients and keeps the bulk of the money. And the person who received the blood does not know that the person who gave it had to do it so he can take his pregnant wife to the doctor.

“I feel it’s hypocritical of people to get so upset when a Roma asks for money in exchange for blood,” Martina said to Pepi, “when there is so little regard for Romani lives in our society. They don’t value the Roma’s life and health but expect the Roma to still be generous to them with their own blood.”

“I agree,” Pepi said, “but that’s not why we ask for money. We do it because we feel forced to. Because there is no other way.”

“If we go outside the blood center [meaning, the National Blood transfusion center in Sofia] right now, or at any time, you will see a few Roma scouting people and offering blood, and the actual potential donors hanging out nearby, hungry, anxious, hoping to be able to get this over with quickly because they always need the cash for something urgent.”

The situation is urgent for the people looking for donors, but the donors themselves are usually also in some kind of emergency. This is why they are there.

“This is one of the quickest, most reliable ways to get cash when you’ve run out of all options and you need it to feed your children or for something medical,” Pepi says. “It’s cornered poor people asking for money in exchange for blood so that they’re not forced to steal a wallet.”

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Outside the blood center, people wait. Some are waiting for blood so a surgery can happen. Others are waiting for blood to turn into groceries, medicine, or a doctor’s visit.

Both are emergencies.

Yet only one side is allowed to call itself desperate. The other is called brazen.

Is it moral to sell blood?

Let’s reframe this question slightly. Is it moral for an entire society to leave no other option than for people to be forced to buy and sell blood?

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This is part 2 of our series “Poverty Culture: Poverty behaviors misread as Romani character”.

Part 1 is here:

Next up in our series:

February 18: “Why the Roma flicker in and out of view”

“You can reach me on this number.” But then the number is always off. “Let’s have coffee on Thursday.” But on Thursday, they never show. “I will take care of this and arrange that.” Then they don’t. The Roma are seen as flaky, unreliable, and unable to keep a promise. In this article, we will explore why what we see as reliability is, in a way, a luxury.

You can read more of our previous articles that touch on the poverty culture theme here:

And here, you can find our book When the truth does not sound true: Exploring common anti-Roma stereotypes.

Our paid subscribers can download it for free as a PDF below.

Read more

Pepi’s niece Dancha and her partner Trayan, more widely known by his nickname Rambo, came over one time when we were struggling to throw out our old couch. Pepi gave them a call and asked if they’re free to help us out. Within one hour, they were here. Pepi and Rambo carried the huge couch the 6 floors down and then we sat down to have a few drinks while our daughter was playing with their children.

In-between the jokes and laughter, as the sun began to set, Pepi mentioned they’re welcome to stay the night.

“Thank you, but we can’t,” Dancha said, “We need to be up early. We’ll be doing the legal marriage thing tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, really?” Pepi said, “How much?”

You’d be forgiven to assume that Dancha and Rambo would be getting married to each other. After several years living together, having two children, being very much in love, a natural step would be to “sign the papers” as we say.

But if they were going to legally marry each other, they were going to do it the Romani way. A big celebration, an orchestra with drums, everything announced weeks if not months in advance.

In fact, they did already have such a wedding in 2019. A Romani wedding: no vows, no signatures, no officiant. Not recognized by institutions, so very much “unofficial.”

So, this is why Pepi’s immediate reaction was not “What?” or “And you didn’t invite me?” or “Congrats!” He immediately knew what Dancha was saying. So he asked “How much?” How much was she going to get paid.

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“It’s a great deal.”

The scam is simple. Men from eastern countries who want to gain legitimate access to the EU get legally married to EU citizens for cash. The newlyweds meet only when they sign the marriage documents, cash changes hands, and then they disappear from each other’s lives.

In this case, it was two men from China. One of them married Dancha, with her partner Rambo acting as the best man / witness to the signature. The other one married Fidana, the long-term partner of Dancha’s brother, mother of his seven children.

They each received 5,000 BGN (2,500 EUR).

“Uncle, I have big plans for this money,” Dancha was telling Pepi. “I will take a driving course and get my driver’s license.”

2,500 EUR is a peculiar number. It can be so little and so much, depending on who looks at it. For some people, it’s pennies. For others, it’s about a month’s salary. And for people living in extreme, generational poverty? It looks life-changing. A clean slate, a new start.

To put things in context, Dancha is unemployed because she looks after the children. Only Rambo supports the family financially, by working in street cleaning and earning minimum wage. At the time when this “wedding” took place, minimum wage was 550 EUR per month. Now it has been raised to the whopping 620 EUR.

Dancha’s plans were very sensible. With a driver’s license, a whole new world opens up. She was looking at this pile of money and thinking of emancipating herself. It was a chance to gain agency in a life full of dead ends.

But what happens to plans when you’re marked by poverty?

If you’ve ever been on a harsh diet, you’ve felt the ravishing appetite the overpowers you when you’re “allowed” to eat again. If you know this feeling, then you have an inkling of how Dancha and Rambo felt when the 2,500 EUR was in their hands.

Dancha and Rambo’s home was demolished in 2017 by the municipality and ever since, they’ve been sharing a social housing room with Dancha’s mother, living in horrible conditions. No running water, power cuts, steep moldy stairs that have caused many injuries, no working toilet, nowhere to shower, walls covered in mold.

When you’re so steeped in grimness, you jump at any opportunity for joy. In Dancha and Rambo’s case, that took the shape of a big plasma TV and a big celebration, buying anyone and everyone as much as they could eat and drink. The plasma TV spent less than a week on their wall before it went to the pawnshop.

The 2,500 EUR melted away. Like ice in the sun.

Some of it was spent on the celebration. A lot on the plasma TV. Some of it was spent gambling by Dancha’s mother. Then, real expenses came knocking, so Dancha and Rambo pawned the TV and that was it.

If you find yourself judging them, hold your horses. It is very easy to see how the money could have been spent more wisely. They see it too. But if you’re starved, physically, psychologically, and you find yourself with a big pile of cash in your hands, all your plans and your rational thinking get hijacked by everything inside you that has been craving and craving forever. It takes enormous willpower to resist this hunger and do the rational thing.

And even then, there are no guarantees.

Dancha’s brother, whose partner Fidana also got married for 2,500 EUR, didn’t blow the money on immediate gratification. He used it to buy a car and a horse. This was a very sound investment. With a horse, his family could make a decent living, way above minimum wage. With a car, he and his adult sons could easily travel to construction gigs and do repair jobs. He opened two paths for his family to hustle, to make a living.

If this sounds almost too good to be true, it’s because it is. For 2,500 EUR, what are the odds that you’d score both a decent car and a healthy horse? The car broke down within a week. Meanwhile expenses piled up too quick so he had to sell the horse before ever making any money with it.

On the outside, in retrospect, from the calm of our comfort, it can seem to us that Dancha’s brother had the right instincts but rushed and rushed, without proofing, without double-checking, without planning.

But you can’t be sure you wouldn’t do the same thing in his shoes. You get this one shot, you know how quickly money melts away, you have to move, you have to turn it around and do something meaningful. So you do it as fast as you can. And then you watch it fall apart.

Fictive marriages are not the only way that Roma living in poverty are being used. They are paid cash to accept companies to be signed over in their names. Property, too. For anyone trying to disguise criminal activity, the easiest —and ironically, cheapest —thing they can do is offer cash to a Roma living in poverty. The cash never sticks. But the signatures do.

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What happens to the ghost marriage?

So now that Dancha and Fidana are married to two men from China who are currently living in Germany, what happens?

On the surface, nothing. Both women are living with their families as they had before then. On paper, they are married to other people, but it doesn’t affect their daily life, so nobody cares.

The consequences show up later, maybe years later.

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A short soulful song from a man facing death and lamenting the loved ones he’s leaving behind. What stands out here is how the song is entirely centered around the mother, in typical Romani style. In the first verse, the man sings to the mother. In the second verse, he asks his three brothers for one thing after he dies: to take care of their mother. In this article, we’ve explored in depth why the mother is so central in Balkan Romani culture and music.

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Mainstream culture is obsessed with diagnosing what went wrong with social media.

We blame algorithms and talk about dopamine loops and screen addiction, about loneliness and alienation. We warn each other that social media isn’t real life, that it distorts reality, that it turns us into performers and voyeurs.

All of this is true.

And yet, it is also incomplete.

Because social media itself is not the disease. It is the host.

Other cultures use the same platforms and arrive at radically different outcomes.

The Roma are one such example.

Across the past two pieces from our series “Unfiltered: Romani Social Media Culture”, we looked at how Romani social media boasts and bleeds—how it holds joy and pain without shame—and how Romani livestreams operate under a simple logic: “Sit with me,” not “Watch me.”

In this final piece, we will go one layer deeper and ask the uncomfortable question:

What if the problem isn’t social media at all—but the values mainstream culture brings to it?

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The influencer mindset, even when no one is influencing

You don’t have to be an influencer to think like one. Mainstream social media culture is governed by a quiet but rigid rule: visibility must be earned.

Not everything deserves to be posted.Not everyone deserves to be seen. Not every moment is “content-worthy.”

We internalize this early. We learn to evaluate our lives as if from the outside, asking:

• Is this impressive enough?

• Is this aesthetic enough?

• Is this meaningful enough to justify attention?

Even people with private accounts and ten friends often behave as if they are being watched by an invisible jury.

This is how alienation sneaks in—not because we are seen too much, but because we feel we must deserve being seen.

Romani social media culture operates under a completely different premise.

1. Why unpolished images feel better than polished ones

Romani photos often include things mainstream culture edits out: clutter, fatigue, half-sleeping people, everyday mess.

From a mainstream lens, this reads as a lack of care. But psychologically, it does something important: it removes the distance between observer and subject.

You don’t admire the image.

You enter it.

In mainstream culture, polished images create hierarchy and a fundamental disconnect. Someone is presenting; others are looking.

In Romani culture, unpolished images create proximity. The message is not “Look at this.” It is “This is where I am. Hello.”

The Roma post this way because authenticity is not something they even think about.

When you don’t experience your life as a performance, when you’re not burdened with how others perceive you, there is no need to curate your image.

2. Posting without an audience in mind

Mainstream social media is haunted by numbers. Even when we claim not to care, we do. We check likes and view counts, we compare, and above all, we internalize visibility as validation.

Among the Roma, posting is not meant to evoke a response. It is about expression.

They don’t wait for the right time to post something depending on how many people are online.

They don’t post for anyone in particular.

They don’t remove posts that “didn’t do well.”

Why not? Because, deep down, when you know that your presence is already accepted, you don’t need proof. And the Roma always know they are accepted.

For the Roma, social media is something you do because you have something to say, not because you expect applause.

3. Why silent stalking doesn’t exist

Mainstream culture has normalized a deeply asymmetrical behavior: watching without being seen.

We know intimate details about people whose presence we never acknowledge. We observe without participating. We consume without responding.

Among the Roma, this would feel unnatural.

If they take an interest in someone’s profile, this interest is expressed. They will leave a bunch of likes or hearts on the person’s posts, leave a few comments, even send a DM. Attention is visible and presence is mutual. If someone looks at your life, they let you know.

Why does this matter?

Silent observation creates a psychological imbalance. It’s a blank slate for projection of your own subconscious thoughts and insecurities but without the mechanics to work through it, namely — a dialogue, some kind of exchange, some kind of electricity or flow of life between you and the other person. With stalking, the flow is one-sided and disguised as “information gathering” while, ironically, you are avoiding to look at yourself.

Expressed attention, by contrast, creates a tiny bit of alchemy – enough to put you both on equal footing psychologically, just as you’d be if you interacted in person.

4. No double self, no split, no theater

One of the most corrosive aspects of mainstream social media culture is the split between online and offline selves.

People perform values online they don’t practice in life. They curate their image, their behavior, their imagined virtue.

Among the Roma, this split barely exists. They respond online as they would in person and they speak as they would face to face.

This attitude comes from a culture where relationships are dense, overlapping, and long-term. Hypocrisy doesn’t travel well in tight circles.

When everyone knows your mother, your cousins, your past, your mistakes—there is little incentive to fabricate a self.

5. A feed that looks like life, not achievement

Mainstream feeds are organized around exceptionality. Romani feeds are organized around continuity.

You see work, rest, movement, boredom, affection, repetition. The same person sweeping streets. The same cart. The same room. The same music.

This is, in a way, a declaration: my ordinary life is allowed to exist publicly.

Where mainstream culture asks, “Is this worth showing?” Romani culture shows “the mundane” unapologetically.

When you consider the demolished homes, the scattered lives, the struggles in the crisis center and social housing, the constant threats of eviction, and the relentless desire by surrounding powers to erase the entire tribe… then posting the mundane is an achievement. It’s a radical statement: “I exist”.

6. What it means to cry in public

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What would make you tap the “Go Live” button on social media? Something special? Something worthy of interrupting everyone else’s scroll?

In Bulgaria, going live usually signals something exceptional. A concert, a soccer game, the recent mass protests — in other words, for noteworthy things.

But the Roma? Yes, they go live when something important happens. Much more often, though, they broadcast moments that—to outsiders—feel perplexing.

The celebration live stream

As sure as the sun rises in the East, when a group of Roma sit down at a table to drink and celebrate, someone will take out a phone and hit the Go Live button. They flip to the front camera and position the phone on the table, leaning it against a bottle or a cup.

If they are sitting next to a beloved or special relative they will adjust the phone to include them in the frame. If there is dancing or something interesting happening, they will flip the camera to show it, and then position the phone back where it was.

These livestreams might last five minutes or an hour. They start, stop, and start again across the evening—casual check-ins rather than a single broadcast.

To outsiders, this raises questions. Is anyone even watching these videos? Who are they for? What is the point in them?

Let’s start out by telling you what these live-streams are not.

They are not curated. They are not scripted or shaped in any way. The Roma don’t perceive them as “content” released into the world.

They are not meant to be watched in full, though you are welcome to, if you have a few hours to spare.

They are not some kind of statement, declaration, or a “Look at me” cry.

So, what are they?

An invitation. Something along the lines of, “Sit with me for a few minutes.”

When Pepi is scrolling through Facebook and sees a live-stream on his feed, he clicks it open and now, he is there — with his niece, cousin, whoever happens to be streaming. It’s as if they are both at the table, listening to the same music, to the same chatter of relatives. Pepi usually types in some kind of joke into the comments or a “Cheers” or a “Have fun” and the person who is live-streaming sees it, thanks him, asks him how he’s doing. They chat for a few minutes. Pepi clicks out and then continues scrolling.

For both of them, this moment, as small and simple as it was, is very much treasured. This is the point of the live-streams: presence.

In our previous piece we talked about how the Roma post both the good and the bad on social media because they know their audience is comprised of relatives who care and want to hear from them.

The live-streams are an extension of this.

Among the Roma, when you see a live-stream of someone having a drink at a table it’s as if you ran into them. You might wave, you might stop to chat for a few minutes, you might join them.

This is what makes the Roma go live — not because something is happening, but because someone is there.

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The “mundane” live stream

Celebrations are not the only time when the Roma go live. You often see live streams from street cleaning, sweeping the streets, off-loading containers, or sitting inside the garbage truck on its way to the depot.

Or, you see people going live, propping up the phone, putting on some music and just going about their business at home. Cooking, cleaning, smoking a cigarette.

All of these are stills from live-streams that ran for 15–20 minutes. What is being broadcast here?

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Happy Vasilitza, dear friends.

Here in Bulgaria, the Roma welcome the new year on January 14th under the patron Bango Vasil.

You can read more about it here:

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Dear friends,

While we’re preparing our new articles for The Sky and Earth Know in January, there is an exciting launch we can’t wait to share with you!

Co-author of this platform, Martina Mustafova, just had her essay The Bulgarian for ‘I Love You’ published by the amazing Wind&Bones Books.

You can find it at the link below.

The Bulgarian for 'I Love You'

Next week, we will be back to our regular program with new articles and songs!

Happy New Year!

Pepi and Martina

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“Who cares?”

This is one of the most common criticisms of people who overshare online. “Who cares that she’s having coffee?” or “Who cares that he’s out with his friends?”

In mainstream culture, sharing daily life is frowned upon. It’s seen as tacky, needy, even pathological — a compensation for what one supposedly lacks offline.

Meanwhile, we wring our hands about the mental-health crisis fueled by social media. We blame the endless parade of perfect lives: curated vacations, filtered faces, manufactured happiness. We conclude that social media is a hoax, a pageant of polished lies.

But here’s the truth: these critiques describe mainstream culture, not the medium.

Because other cultures use social media differently.

Like the Roma.

Who cares? I do. We do.

From the mainstream perspective, the Roma take “oversharing” to a new level. Coffee selfies. Bench selfies. Balcony selfies. Photos with cousins, brothers, in-laws. Selfies at bus stops and on buses. At work. At rest.

Moving metal for scrap.

At the restaurant.

At the crisis center.

In hospital beds.

In Roma feeds, life isn’t divided into moments worth posting. Life itself is worth posting.

Some pictures are stunning: radiant, cinematic, perfectly aligned with what a “normal” social media user would share.

Others, equally beautiful to fellow Roma, would never make it onto a mainstream timeline.

But here’s the key difference: In mainstream culture, we usually post when we want to impress. In Romani culture, we post when we want to connect.

And this is why the audience is different, too — and why the answer to “Who cares?” changes depending on who you ask.

In mainstream culture, the answer is obvious, implied even in the question itself. “No one. No one cares that you’re having coffee or enjoying a sunny autumn day.”

In Romani culture, the answer is “Everyone cares.”

To be fair, in mainstream culture, you likely do have a few people who genuinely care about your daily joys and small moments. Loved ones who like seeing you with a coffee in the sun. But the truth is, except for that small circle, most people are indifferent.

With the Roma, that circle isn’t small. It’s the whole tribe.

Social media, for the Roma, is like a village square. They don’t use it merely as a platform for grand announcements and theatrics. They use it as a tool to preserve the intimate sort of proximity that only exists in tight circles.

In the tribe, in the so-called ghetto before it was demolished, you’d run into everyone all the time. One person would be moving metal for scrap, another would be rocking a baby to sleep, another would have had a fight with their spouse and will vent to you about it, another will be excited about a new job prospect, another would have lost money gambling, and on and on it goes.

In the ghetto, everything matters, because everyone matters.

Social media is merely an extension of this.

In mainstream culture, posting can feel like shouting into a void and hoping someone hears you. Hence the criticism: “Who are they posting this for?”, with the implied answer being: “No one.”

The Roma never post into a void. They know exactly who is watching: their cousins, their siblings, their elders, their people.

And this is why they don’t share only happy moments. They share their pain, too.

Share The Sky and Earth Know

The Joy Feed: Bragging as proof of life

The Roma post a lot of pictures that, through a mainstream lens, might look like bragging. The most obvious examples are photos with shiny new things: a gold chain, a gold ring, and most commonly — a brand-new sound system.

But the vast majority of “brag posts” aren’t about objects at all. They are about what Roma consider true wealth: family. Holding a baby or toddler. A selfie with a sibling, cousin, or parent. Countless photos with a boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. The most cherished of all: group photos showing the big clan together—unity, belonging, strength in numbers.

Even work photos, like the shot of a horse cart loaded with metal for scrap we shared above, are part of the same category. So is a quick selfie in between sweeping the streets. These pictures say: “I’m working. I’m earning. I am a person of dignity.”

But here’s the thing. These pictures are published with the purpose of showing, not showing off.

In other words, the message is not “Look at me, I am better than you.”

The message is, “Look at me, I am doing ok.”

Do you feel the difference?

Gold jewelry, for Romani communities living in poverty, does not signal superiority or wealth. It signals stability and investment. A person with a gold chain is a person who has tied up their money in gold, and by pawning it later, will be able to secure food, clothes, and necessities for their family.

A photo with family doesn’t display status. It displays support, safety, and belonging.

A work selfie doesn’t boast about productivity. It says: “I provide. I stand on my feet.”

So when the Roma scroll and see these posts, they don’t roll their eyes.

They genuinely feel: “Good. He’s doing well.”

But what happens when you are not ok? When you are in crisis, or suffering?

The Pain Feed: Posts that summon the tribe

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