In the last 10 years I have been at least twice a year to Bulgaria. I spent time in some of the largest urban ghettoes in Bulgaria Fakulteta โ Sofia and Stolipinovo- Plovdiv. I saw also the living conditions of Roma in Vidin and Ruse. The problems there are well documented and very similar with the problems of the urban ghettoes everywhere else in the region. Unsanitary living conditions, drugs, trafficking, prostitution, abject poverty, small criminality, usury, violence, people broken by addiction, poverty or discrimination are all there.
Education is devalued and overall ignored as a way to success by the overwhelming majority of parents and children. Generations after generation of children are lost โ used to start with begging then the garbage work, early marriages, then temporary migrations. Nowadays trafficking of children, selling or abusing drugs, theft, robbery, usury and prostitution are the main threats as many youngsters see these as the only way for becoming successful in a society that despise them.
Many children live in these ghettoes far above the average percentage 3 to 4 times more โ the majority of them will become broken adults in overcrowded prisons with practically no chances to break the ghetto cycle.
The ghettoes are feared and despised by the Bulgarians. The local administrations ignore them and used people living in the ghettoes at elections. The infrastructure is terrible and there is practically no policing. Safety in the ghettoes are ensured by gangs or extended families. People that abuse the most vulnerable in the ghettoes are getting rich -criminality and bribing the system are tools that get them there These very few become the role models for the many children growing up throwing the ghettoes in a dangerous spiral of looking for fast success through illegal means.
Isperih is very different from an urban ghetto- a tiny city in north rural Bulgaria โ 30 min drive from Razgrad or 3 hours from Bucharest. Some of them live in nice big houses. The business is in fact a con. Turkish speaking Roma girls and women use specialized chat rooms to get in touch with Turkish men living in Western Europe โ mostly Germany. After a few days of chatting on the internet the women will ask money for different reasons including cost of travelling to go visit.
