It is difficult to assess the size of the Roma community living in Moldova. It is estimated that between twelve and fifty thousand Roma people live in the country, a number that is considerably smaller than the Roma population in the neighbouring Romania. The community is often associated with the area of Soroca, in the North, where luxurious houses built by affluent Roma families dominate the landscape of the fluvial town. The houses are built with remittances from abroad, mostly Russia and Ukraine, where many Roma are seasonal workers.
It is a sign of social distinction to invest the money in real estate instead of business-related activities but it often attracts slander by the non-Roma population, which thinks the money is coming from criminal activities.
The community is, however, very diverse and is spread throughout the country: from the tiny, poverty-stricken settlements in the districts of Calarasi, Nisporeni and Ungheni to the larger towns of Hincesti and Edinet. Despite many Roma considering themselves primarly Moldovan citizens and mostly speaking Romanian as their first language, non-Roma Moldovans carry prejudice towards the community and this is the cause of widespread social inequality and human rights abuses1. Moreover, the Roma community in the whole region suffers much higher rates of unemployment and illiteracy compared to the non-Roma Moldovan residents.
“Tell me, when Europe will come here, what will the result be? The price of cigarettes will increase. I won’t be able to afford to smoke.”
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- Ursari, Calarasi district.
Graseni is a small village in the Ungheni district, not far from Pirlita. It is divided in two by a road that once used to be an ethnic boundary between Moldovans and Roma. Many families are now mixed but the settlement east of the road is still traditionally inhabited by Roma families and is called Faraonka.
Part of the Dragan family lives here. Vladimir Dragan, the patriarch, was born in nearby Bumbata in 1936 and, after getting married, he moved to Faraonka in 1958 where he worked in the local kolkhoz Lenin. He has had numerous children, fourteen, of which eleven are still alive. His memory is fading and he struggles to talk in Romani since most of the conversation in his family is carried on in Romanian, but this is nevertheless a source of amusement amongst his relatives. “He only needs fifty grams of vodka, then he would talk in Romani with no problems,” jokes Liliana, one of his daughters.
Most siblings live in Faraonka where job opportunities are few, mostly in the agricultural sector and men often travel to Russia to work as seasonal workers. Liliana’s husband, Gheorghe, who is Moldovan, is one of them. They have both had a stint abroad as workers in construction sites. Liliana is a strong and muscular woman: “My husband doesn’t call me cioara (‘crow’ in Romanian, a derogatory term for gypsies referred to their darker complexion), otherwise I would beat him up!”
Daniela, her sister, also married a non-Roma Moldovan. She has four kids and, being unemployed, gets a small amount of money as a form of social security from the local authorities but she complains that the amount given to a Roma family is often half of the one provided to Moldovan families. The husband, a farmer, only occasionally works since the hilly fields surrounding the village are mostly managed by a sharecropping system and he doesn’t have the money to rent a tractor, which is essential to work the land. As a consequence, he rarely brings home more than 1,200 lei (60 euro) each month.
As Vladimir’s health is declining, Grigore, his son, is the new patriarchal figure in the family. He defines himself as a baron, an informal title of authority within the Roma community.
“Most Roma here consider themselves as Moldovans and we get along well with non-Roma,” he says. Grigore has an interest in the activities of the Social Political Movement of the Roma (Miscarea social-politica a Romilor din Republica Moldova), the main political party in Moldova advocating for Roma rights, but nevertheless expresses a deep distrust towards local political institutions. He prefers to be considered an authority as a baron within the Roma community rather than seeking political representation at the national level for the Roma community.
His distrust towards local political institutions has been aggravated by the steps that recent Moldovan governments have taken towards Europe. Grigore thinks himself as a man of the older generation: he served in the Soviet Army in Voronezh, Russia. He is familiar with Russian customs and believes that Russia could provide better opportunities and investments for his country.
“Tell me, when Europe will come here, what will the result be? The price of cigarettes will increase. I won’t be able to afford to smoke. I can barely scrap 100 euro per month now. Also, they talk about more job opportunities and money for Moldova but our women are going to Italy to wipe old people’s asses, that’s it,” he says, abruptly enraged.
Grigore’s concerns are shared by many in Moldova thinking that the liberalisation of the visa regime and a free common market would not bring sudden wealth but simply turn the country into a large source of cheap labour for Europe. He is quick to provide an example: “An Italian firm established a factory in Ungheni [a nearby city at the border with Romania] producing car-seat fabric that meets European Union standards. There, they would pay a worker 1,400 euro, here they pay 3,000 lei (150 euro). Same standards! And they don’t even give you a break to smoke a cigarette.”
