SOFIA — Every day, Mirela wakes up at dawn. She kneads bread, bakes it, wakes up the children, removes her flour-stained apron, and sets out. She walks down a long street intended only for cars until she reaches the tram stop. After another 70 minutes, she arrives at the elegant offices where she cleans for eight or nine hours, almost entirely paid under the table.
She never learned to read, so she’s unaware that on the wall of the building she walks by every morning, next to a swastika, someone wrote “gypsy parasites”.
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But she does notice the disdainful glances she receives every day, from pedestrians in the city’s avenues to the office employees she cleans up after. On unlucky days, she encounters groups of high school students who hurl insults at her.
The worst days are when she finishes work after the last tram, especially if it’s raining or snowing: the streets turn into mud, and she has to rely on the hope that she will meet a kind neighbor who will help her get home in their car.
Segregated neighborhoods
Mirela is one of the 45,000 inhabitants of Fakulteta, one of the three largest Roma ghettos in Europe. It’s a vast expanse of dust and concrete on the western outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital city, where public transportation is almost nonexistent, and many regular taxi drivers refuse to operate.
They make money abroad, but they will never cut ties with Fakulteta. This is where they want to raise their families.
It is an integral part of the city, yet it seems as if it is not. Nothing can associate Fakulteta with Sofia: there is no trace of the iconic neo-rococo and neo-classical buildings of the city center, but neither the socialist civil architecture of outer neighborhoods. It lacks brutalist buildings and the glass and steel structures that have risen in the new millennium. There are no bookstores, libraries, clubs, supermarkets, or even hospitals. Even the police avoid entering the neighborhood — except for drug operations.
In some alleys, sewage flows freely, converging into an external channel supposedly managed by the water agency of Sofia, but it is often stagnant and clogged with weeds. In 2018, an outbreak of hepatitis A originated precisely from these open sewers.
Still, ambulances do not enter here, and when someone falls ill, they must reach the emergency room by taxi, if they can find one willing to take the ride.
It’s challenging to pinpoint the center of Fakulteta, a mix of sheet metal shelters and brick houses. But it would also be misleading to identify the neighborhood solely by its shacks: there is no shortage of houses of various heights and styles, sometimes accompanied by old luxury sedans. “These are the homes of residents seeking fortune in Germany or Italy,” explains Neli, a cultural mediator born and raised in Fakulteta. “They make money abroad, but they will never cut ties with Fakulteta. This is where they want to raise their families.”
Along one of the bustling arteries of the neighborhood, we meet Tinka, a very elderly resident who spends her days behind a stand selling sweets and toys. She shows with resignation the fruit of the past four hours of work: three lev, just over one euro and fifty cents. “With the pension I receive, I struggle to even buy bread every day.”
The history of discrimination
Established in Bulgaria around the 13th century, the Roma constitute approximately 5% of the total population and are the second-largest minority after the Turkish community. Their settlement process began during the Ottoman period and intensified with the advent of socialism when a decree in 1958 mandated permanent residence for all, putting an end to nomadism.
While many Roma families had already been settled in the area now known as Fakulteta since the 1930s, communist urban plans did not take their presence into account. The zone was intended to become a large sports complex, a project that was never realized. Even attempts to install a sewage system were rejected by the municipality.
Over time, an increasing number of Roma from all over Bulgaria settled spontaneously in Fakulteta, forming the large enclave that exists today.
“Politicians remember us only when it’s time to vote,” explains Neli, “in two opposite ways: either to get our votes or to come here and say, during elections, that there is decay and that we steal.” Regarding the responsibilities of institutions, Mirela prefers to respond in Romani rather than in Bulgarian before wishing us a good day and quickly returning to her chores.
The European Commission has received numerous reports on how insufficient commitment of Bulgarian, especially concerning housing rights, which do not comply with the European Union’s Directive 2000/43/EC on racial equality.
The Council of Europe also regularly criticizes the insufficient commitment of Bulgarian institutions in countering hostility towards the Roma. The Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović commented on “the lack of reaction to some very serious incidents of hate speech perpetrated by high-level politicians,” in 2019 after a visit to Bulgaria.
With the onset of COVID, discriminatory policies towards residents of Roma neighborhoods had their most vivid manifestation. In April 2020, while the rest of Sofia could move around without particular restrictions and precautions, the inhabitants of the Roma neighborhoods Fakulteta and Filipovtsi were literally segregated with military checkpoints and makeshift walls.
In a Roma neighborhood in the southeastern city of Yambol, “there was even a helicopter spraying disinfectant from the sky, an absurd method contrary to any scientific logic,” explains Atanas Stoyanov, who monitors Bulgaria for the European Roma Rights Centre, the most significant continental organization for Roma rights. “At some point, only Roma were prevented from going to work, leading to clashes with the police.”
Stoyanov explains that there is a significant misconception in social policies for Bulgarian Roma. “There is no need for integration but for inclusion. During COVID, many Roma children could not continue studying, lacking access to the internet or not owning a computer at all.”
Fighting for inclusion
An imposing white building dominates the Fakulteta neighborhood. It is a center managed by the private organization Hesed, financed by national and international donations. It provides free services to women and children: full-time education, vocational and entrepreneurial training, healthcare, psychological support, and assistance against domestic violence.
This is a quiet place, inhabited by good people.
These services are mainly provided by mediators and professionals who grew up in the neighborhood itself. Elena Kabakchieva, the president, is critical of the traditional welfare approach, which she believes does not address root issues.
“Many Roma children struggle at school not because they lack potential but because brain development is closely tied to nutrition. 80% of Roma children have an iron deficiency, leading to cognitive deficits. What I want to say is that without working with parents and providing training, any social policy is destined to fail.”
In a Bulgaria marked by segregation, there are individuals striving to change the status quo, such as Mihail Mishev, a student at the American University of Bulgaria and a political activist. “I have faced a lot of discrimination in my life. I was the first Roma in the history of my neighborhood, Nadezhda in the city of Sliven, to graduate from the scientific high school. For a while, I hid my origins, declaring myself Bulgarian or Turkish. I was afraid: a classmate with whom I had shared a room for four years had threatened to slit my throat if I didn’t watch how I behaved.
According to a study, 99% of Bulgarians would not marry a Roma for any reason. But in the country with the highest inequality in Europe, xenophobia can thrive because oligarchic elites divert the attention of the poor towards the weaker ones in order to pursue their own interests.”
A few steps from the street that marks the boundary between Fakulteta and the rest of the city, there is a small house that occasionally doubles as a coffee bar. There are no signs.
Pesho, the host, serves hot drinks leaning out of the kitchen window, which overlooks a dirt alley. The interiors of the house are visible: a professional coffee machine contrasts with a sofa eaten by woodworms and cardboard boxes used as a makeshift cupboard.
“This is a quiet place, inhabited by good people. Here, life can also be beautiful.”
