Discarded balloons: A few words about Romani joy
The social housing buildings in Zaharna Fabrika, Sofia, are protected as cultural heritage. They were originally built as residential buildings for factory workers and the entire area has a distinct architectural vibe. On the outside, these houses are beautiful. Many movies have been filmed here: in fact, quite a few times we discovered, when watching a random movie, that the background is in fact Zaharna Fabrika - the place the two of us met and fell in love, the place that has housed so much joy and tragedy for Pepi’s tribe.
While the houses are stunning on the outside, the inside story is very different. Holes in the walls and roofs, frequent power cuts, no place to shower, frequent interruptions in the water supply, mold-infested rooms. After the demolition of dozens of Romani homes in 2017, the families were placed in these houses and they have been doing their best to renovate and maintain them. So walking into one of these houses can feel both beautiful and dystopian.
Colorful, cozy rooms with glaring holes in the walls. Neatly folded children’s clothes, a pot of soup on the stove, music and laughter ringing in the background - but if you want to use a restroom, you climb steep wooden stairs that creak under your feet, and you have to be accompanied to the restroom door by a friend from the tribe who will then use pliers to wrestle the door open - because the handle is broken; and then stand guard in front and accompany you back.
When our daughter was born, we organized a traditional Romani celebration to welcome her into the world. From the hospital, she was first welcomed here, in Zaharna Fabrika, and then we went to our home. “It’s just going to be easier,” Pepi’s sisters Nana and Todorka told us, making the sound argument that all the relatives would not fit in our apartment anyway. Much better to celebrate outdoors, in-between the tiny houses, and set up a designated room for the baby and mother and all the gifts. This room was on the second floor of one of the social housing buildings, one of the two tiny rooms that Nana shares with her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandkids.
This May, we went to the houses with the specific mission to deliver things we bought with the donations from our fundraiser. We brought a wheel chair to one of the elderly men who is disabled and bed-bound and materials for one of the recently-placed families after the April demolition, whose two rooms were literally falling apart from mold.
We waited outside in the sun for the husband to come back from work. The wife, Tzetza - one of Pepi’s nieces, five months pregnant, was also just returning from work. Their four children - 3 boys and a girl, were the ones who greeted us and our daughter when we arrived. One of the boys gave a doll to our daughter, and they all ran around and chased each other until another child from the tribe arrived, carrying a bunch of balloons he had found.
These balloons, bright and color-coordinated, were clearly purchased originally for a specific occasion, and then discarded when they were no longer needed. A temporary flash of joy. Like so many discarded things, however, Roma communities living in poverty give them a second life.
The children played with the balloons until they all popped. In the meantime, the parents started the renovation of their new home.
In the background of all this, several families from the demolished quarter were still sleeping in tents across the street. Tzetza and her family still hadn’t received a formal housing order, meaning that they could renovate the place and then get kicked out of it - something that has happened quite a few times to Romani families in these houses over the years. Violent racist threats from the white majority in the neighborhood were rising and rising. The surrounding people were angry that families from the demolished houses were being placed in social housing nearby. They didn’t want a single Roma to remain in the neighborhood.
And yet, if you were sitting in the sun among these houses with us, you wouldn’t have felt any of these tremors around. The only thing that existed was children playing with balloons outdoors. And their parents making their home livable.
Joy as defiance
In the years since the first demolition in 2017, the following demolition in 2019, and the final demolition of the Romani quarter in April 2025, the homeless families were placed in social housing, in a crisis center, and now recently, left to survive under the open sky.
Throughout all this, they have refused to give up their right to joy. Funnily, this is what annoys racists the most.
“We have been subjected to so many weddings,” one commenter lamented in the closed and well-guarded Facebook group for the neighborhood where the residents discuss at length their thoughts (more fantasies and less so strategies) about ethnic cleansing.
Yes, Romani weddings don’t stop just because people’s houses were destroyed. The Roma still fall in love, still have children, still celebrate every single thing worth celebrating. Mere weeks after the 2019 demolition, Nana’s youngest daughter was getting married and the wedding procession which consisted of the entire tribe led by a Romani orchestra walked the streets around the social housing buildings and straight to the municipality that had destroyed the houses. Can you send a clearer message? “You can destroy our homes, but you will still hear our drums and see us dance.”
The Roma don’t take anything for granted, so they grab and cherish any piece of joy they can. Like children with balloons. And all the violence and misery around shrink to nothing.
