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SOROCA; A GYPSY RENAISSANCE.... July 2006 |
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Gypsies are constantly being depicted or depicting themselves as miserably poor and helpless, but the Gypsies on the hill overlooking the city of Soroca in the Republic of Moldova show a very different Gypsy, a Gypsy of great wealth (quiet a marvel here where 80% of the population live below the poverty level) and shamelessly flaunting it along the ostentatious faces of his three and four and five story mansions. It�s a Gypsy renaissance�
Good taste by western standards display a degree of tact, the sublime, an order of space, but this simply bores the wild Gypsy spirit. They like things loud, boisterous and full of color � and it is this drunkenness that engulfs you as you walk through Gypsy streets of Soroca. |
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I really wasn�t sure what I was getting myself into as I rode the mini bus up the hill into the Gypsy section of town, sitting pressed between a pair of quiet Moldovans on one side and cackling Gypsies on the other� I followed the Gypsy pair out of the bus. This must be the place. Directly across the street, in a clearing by the road, a rowdy crowd of dark skinned males were loudly arguing and with the shaking of their fists and stomping of their feet. The stereotypes were showing themselves true; noisy, ill mannered, untamed� dangerous?
I headed quickly away from the wild crowd, down one of the side streets and out of view of the suspicious glares coming off the fringes of the crowd. I worried while I felt for my camera. I had heard of Gypsy disdain towards outsiders � what they call �gadze� (non-Gypsies). Would I be accosted for snapping photographs of their private little world? Would the families quickly mass together and until I had the whole town verbally chasing me down the hill? |
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The dusty side streets were silent. There wasn�t a soul in sight. I began hastily stealing photographs of some of their extraordinary castles like a thief; photos left � right - behind and ahead of me. Three young men suddenly popped out from behind one of the large gates. I nervously smiled - they reciprocated cheerfully and came forward� It seems I was not so original after all, and not nearly the first outsider to wander inside their private little Oz.
People began coming a few years back after the commune first made the news with the extravagant burial of their tribal leader who goes by the name �The Baron�. It is a hereditary position now held by his son. What really caught the eye of the media back then wasn�t the homes, they weren�t so grand in those days, it was the way they entombed their leader along with a computer, phone, a toaster, tailored suits, bottles of brandy and pounds of gold, all which he needed for the next life like an Egyptian pharaoh, and then sealed him up under a ton of cement
�You want to meet the Baron?� one of the boys asked�. Sure � why not. |
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We went to his castle, maybe not the biggest mansion in town, but certainly with the tallest and thickest gate. One of the Baron�s princesses got up off her big fluffy pillowy porch chair and made the long walk out to meet us. She had a tawny complexion with long, black, silky hair and a ghastly huge white herpes blister across her upper lip. We asked to see the Baron. �He�s not in,� she shortly replied and as if we had been disturbing her.
�Than perhaps later?�
�He�s in Russia.�
We asked to meet his wife.
�Nope,� and she swung down the heavy bolt to the gate� |
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Formerly workers with metals, what they call �Kaldera,� the Gypsies of Soroca have since transformed themselves into a class of merchants, what they call �lovara� (from the Gypsy word love� meaning money). From autumn till spring the men (some with their families) travel across the former Soviet Union buying and selling goods until the summer months, the wedding season, when they converge back home and party. |
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MORE: GO TO PAGE 2 |
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