In the ashes, the Romani heart keeps beating
we'll take you on a short walk among the rubble of our demolished quarter
On April 15, 2025, five days before Easter, the third and final demolition wave descended upon our Romani quarter. The protocol was the same as the demolitions before: at 5:00 am the mayor arrived with gendarmerie, a bulldozer, and despite the please of the families, razed their homes to the ground.
More than two weeks later, this situation is still brewing. The majority of the 180+ people are left homeless, some sleeping with relatives, others among the ruins of their houses. In future articles, we will tell you about this more. The violation of the European Court for Human Rights’ order to postpone the demolition until housing is found. The refusal of the municipality to give the families tents donated by the Red Cross, resulting in people sleeping under the open sky through heavy rain. The massive division in our society, some standing up to defend and support the Romani families, others turning against them with vitriol. The escalation in national and foreign media. This is all still unfolding and we don’t know how it will get resolved but, piece by piece, we will write about everything that was brought to the surface. Racism and humanity. People throwing fireworks at the sleeping families at night, making them think they’re being attacked with guns. People showing up to read with the kids, witness the ruins, talk with the parents, cook with the families, bring food and clothes, donating tents from abroad when the municipality refused to release the tents in its storage. The erasure of Romani culture and heritage over years on institutional and governmental level, forcing a community into a situation where they have to scatter to survive thus completing the final wave of demolition - not of the quarter, but of the tribe.
There are a lot of stories to tell.
But now, here, we will tell just one story. How we, together with our daughter, went to the demolished quarter on Easter to support - and came back full of gifts. Because this is how the Romani spirit burns: bright and generous even in the ashes.
“Can I give her this dog?”
Our daughter, Elena, is two and a half years old. When we walked into the area of the demolition, she saw her father who had already arrived there earlier, ran towards him, and fell into a puddle of water. Undeterred, she got back up and continued running. When she reached Pepi and the rest of the people from his tribe, sitting among the ruins next to the embers of a fire they had lit for the night, she entered a home. One person picked up a bottle of water and washed her muddy hands. Another person gave her strawberries that had just been brought as a donation by volunteers.
They embraced her, quietly, as one of their own. We don’t know how much she internalized about the ruins all around us. It was like a war zone and no amount of descriptions or pictures can convey the feeling of being there and seeing the graveyard of people’s homes. But it was as if our daughter didn't notice any of that. She noticed only the people, her father’s relatives. She sat in one person’s lap, tickled another, played peek-a-boo with a third.
“Can I give her this dog?”, a boy, Diego, asked Martina. He was holding a cute white plush toy dog. He was asking permission to gift it. “Thank you, you’re very kind, but you keep it,” Martina said, feeling uncomfortable taking something of sentimental value from a child whose home has just been destroyed.
But he insisted, so Martina agreed. He gave the toy to Elena and when he saw her hugging it with joy, he said, “I have more toys. I’ll bring them.” And off he went.
A few minutes later, Diego was back with over 10 plush toys. A huge sheep that now holds the prime spot in our living room couch, and a bunch of smaller bunnies, cats, foxes. “No, no,” Martina said, feeling as if we’re somehow robbing him. “We can’t even carry this many toys.”
“No problem,” Diego said. “I’ll bring you a bag.” And off he went again. Then he was back with a plastic bag. The toys barely fit in, but they did fit in. This was one of the bags we ended up carrying home.
Diego did not take no for an answer. He insisted he wants our daughter to have the toys.
Two weeks later, he was formally placed in one of the two crisis centers in our city together with his father and brother. At 5:00 am the following morning, a Sunday, child protection services barged in and took him and his brother. Because their mother is dead, their father is not formally listed as their father (very common in Romani communities living in poverty but this is a topic for another article,) and they were now in municipality jurisdiction.
The real-life dog and the cross built from ruins
Diego’s plush white dog has a home now and happens to be one of our daughter’s 3 favorite toys. But the actual, living and breathing dogs of the quarter still roam it.
As we were talking with a few people from the community, one of the pointed out a dog resting on top of, to an outsider, indistinguishable rubble.
“This was his house, he still remembers,” the man said. “He only sleeps there.”
This is not just about remembering the physical location of something. It’s about the energy. All this rubble under the dog used to be walls, furniture, a carpet, clothes. Passports, children’s schoolbooks, important and sentimental belongings were buried across the entire quarter. Markers of identity.
In public discourse here in Bulgaria, a lot is said about what kind of houses these were. They keep being described as barracks, as if they’d tumble over by the slightest breeze. Some people with critical thinking pointed out how you can clearly see bricks and concrete among the ruins, so these houses were not makeshift barracks. In an attempt to show how these were real cared-for homes, a public figure posted pictures of the interior of one of the houses, a typical Romani-fashion kitchen. Beautifully furnished, with bold motives in the design. Which of course angered people even more. “If they can afford all this, why are they waiting for the municipality to find them housing?”
We’ve written about this before. A Romani room looks bold and beautiful even if it is in a crisis center. The Roma do all the renovation work with their own hands, just like they built the houses in the quarter with their own hands. Their relatives help out, because this is how strong communities work. They borrow from each other. When they want or need something expensive they can’t afford at the moment, like a fridge, a washing machine, they pawn something, or take a loan from a loan shark, or ask a relative to pawn something of theirs.
“On the outside, a Romani house might look like trash,” Pepi says. “Outside, people store material they gathered for scrap, or things that don’t fit inside the small house. But on the inside? On the inside, it’s like you enter another world.”
Now when the houses, built and furnished with so much heart, were bulldozed to dust - where does all this energy go?
Some of it is beneath the rubble. The dogs feel it.
And some of it rises up.
The day before Easter, the people in tribe built and erected a cross from the rubble. It still stands there, almost three weeks later.
The Roma know how to be defiant in the face of violence and tragedy. They uphold joy. The cross was a statement that Easter will not be taken from them.
And a statement that even among the death they’re going through now: of their homes, their ancestral history, their community; they will rise again.
The children playing in the rubble
Our daughter had the best time during our Easter visit. The other kids played with her, protected her not to trip up, if she remembers anything from this day it will be warmth, joy, and love.
While we were there another group of volunteers arrived with more food. Again, people from the tribe kept pressing bags into our hands. “For the child.” We refused to take food but in the end, some of the kids gave a bag full of juices, chocolate, and other snacks to our daughter, and she happily began snacking together with one of the boys. One of the girls brought a big box with a toy make up set. “Can I give it to her?”
Again, Martina tried to refuse. Again, the kid insisted. Pepi calmly accepted the gifts, knowing much better that this is how the Roma are.
If you end up in a Romani home, you’ll be fed and treated with warmth and respect. If you bring a child, it will be given gifts and it will be bestowed blessings.
“You can take anything from a Roma,” Pepi says. “But never their dignity.”
Martina would add, “nor their heart.”
Even if their home is rubble, they will make you feel welcome, overflowing, among family. Because they know that the true wealth is inside and it will always be there. Just like the interior of their homes is beautiful even if the exterior looks “like trash.” When their exterior crumbles, when their century-old homes are turned to dust, they still have themselves - and each other.
