Pippa's Travel Diaries: Romania
I recently travelled to Transylvania, where our latest project has begun to take shape.
Transylvania is a very wild and ancient landscape, where many farmers still use a horse and cart as transportation amongst the small subsistence farms scattered across the land. Shepherds watch flocks of sheep, goats, and cows, while packs of sheep dogs keep watch over the fields, searching for signs of bears in the dense forests nearby. Tucked between the farms and forests lie small villages, with old houses painted a soft rainbow of colours.Children play in the roads, and old ladies sit and watch the few cars that pass.
The Roma communities, my reason for visiting Transylvania, are situated on the edges of these villages. I half-closed my eyes, and could see the silhouettes of full shirts, red flowered fabric swinging low on hips, black hair covered by floral red scarves, flashes of gold earrings and gold teeth; I felt that I could have been in India.
The men of the Kalderash caste of Roma Gypsies wear black, wide-brimmed, felt hats with white ribbons; sporting fine, full moustaches and a touch of exotic swagger.
I met Victor Clapota Roma (junior) last May at his workshop in this tiny rural village. Victor and his father, Victor senior, along with his grandfather and their ancestors going back for generations, have all been traditional coppersmiths. Today, they work from an open workshop at their home.
The Roma Gypsies are at a social disadvantage, with a mortality rate that is ten years less than the national average. The poverty, employment, educational, and health exclusion of the Roma people is endemic in Romania, and in every other country where the Roma live. These are unfortunately well-documented facts.
Victor senior is a very talented coppersmith, he moved into his family’s first home at only eight months old, having previously lived a nomadic lifestyle in horse wagons. Victor was married at twelve, to his then ten-year-old wife Eva. Neither Victor nor Eva went to school, their marriage was arranged – marrying outside of the Roma community is unthinkable. Victor and Eva’s son, Victor junior – now twenty years old, lives with his parents, as do his wife Maria and their baby.
Victor and Maria were married at thirteen, life cycles in this community move at a fast pace. It interested me to learn that they refer to their neighbours as ‘Romanians’, clearly not sharing in this feeling of national identity.
We discussed working in gold, and creating a few pieces using different motifs and symbols important to the Roma, to see what may work. Victor told me that when the Roma were enslaved (for 500 years in eastern Europe, until the mid-19th Century), the stars were evocative of dreaming of freedom whilst watching the night sky.
Within the Roma community there are also strong beliefs surrounding luck: of being born under a lucky star, of the horseshoe bringing and holding luck, and the Roma always wear something red to bring them luck.
Despite a history of genocide, slavery, lynchings, and being legally hunted, the Roma consider themselves very lucky. Therefore, Victor and I settled on stars and horseshoes as our primary symbols.
Victor and his family welcomed us into their home (painted the luck-bringing red). They shared their food, stories, and laughter with us; I was in awe to observe such an extraordinary family bond. Their baby, Moses, was never for a moment out of doting arms, the family explained that for the Roma, family is everything – a baby is the greatest gift, the continuation of their people and culture.
The love they showered on each other was humbling. Victor is a popular and successful coppersmith not merely because he is skilled, but because he believes in kindness, honesty, and hard work. He worked late into the night and started again in the early morning to finish the pieces for us. When he had finished the pieces, on the morning I was due to leave Romania, I struggled with a broken cash machine in the village. I feared hostility and anger after Victor’s hard work, that the hospitality and cheer would disappear. Instead, Victor laughed and told me not to worry, I could pay him on my next visit (all was settled with a bank transfer, but with no pressure from Victor and his family).
I found them open and excited about trying jewellery, working in gold, solving technical problems, working with everything by hand and collaborating on ideas and designs. Even now, the sound of hammer on anvil is still clanging around my head after hours of listening to the rhythmic tapping, broken only by the teasing of wife to husband, mother to son, and peels of laughter and gurgling from baby Moses. They work hard, but money and work is hard to come by. Cheap pots and pans have replaced their traditional market, the throw-away culture slowly usurps the repair, but they carry on because that is what the Kalderash do – only six other families still do this traditional work in the area, and they are desperate for the skills to continue.
My hope is that we can continue to experiment, finding designs and techniques that work for us to grow a commercial collaboration, and create orders that can give this family work and money. My hope is that our collaboration will show a different side of the Roma gypsies, a picture to counter the negative perception that has plagued so many of the Roma families.
My visit to Romania was a lesson in trust on both our parts – they gave their time, their energy, their friendship, and their trust that we may be able to grow a collaboration. I hope that there is a lucky star hanging over our work together, and that we can continue to grow this partnership.