In today’s Europe, increasingly characterised by growing social tensions, supremacist politics, hostility, and a new wave of nationalist identitarian sentiments, forms of discrimination and isolation are steadily increasing. Along borders as well as within countries, minorities are marginalised, enclosed within physical and cultural spaces predisposed to exclusion and confinement, be they camps, detention facilities, or “ghettos”.
The Roma, Sinti and Gypsy communities in Europe are estimated to number between 10 and 12 million people, the equivalent of the entire population of Belgium. However, 80% of Roma people are at risk of poverty and, despite being the largest minority in Europe, they suffer more discrimination than other groups.
Stolipinovo, the so-called largest Roma, Sinti, and Gypsy “ghetto” in Europe, is located outside of Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city.
The limiting and stereotypical use of the word “ghetto” reflects the real marginalisation that characterises places like Stolipinovo - and it imposes a distorted image, obscuring the complexity and heterogeneity that exists in the district. Not only different ethnic and religious identities, but the poor and the very poor coexist, as well as the middle class and the wealthy; there is patriarchal conservatism, and LGBTQIA+ communities.
During Communism, it was an ordinary neighborhood, but became a ghetto after the fall of Communism and with the privatization of industry when Gypsies lost their jobs because of racial discrimination.
Today, the 80,000 people of Stolipinovo are social outcasts rejected by the surrounding society and authorities.
They have a Turkish background, speak Turkish and identify as Muslim Turks. The group was traced in the territory long before Bulgaria became independent in 1908, and they claim to be the last heritage of the Ottoman Empire.
The social structure is based on the family unit, with defined gender roles and hierarchies. Cultural traditions are core values; events are celebrated on the streets, and open to the community.
Stolipinovo's inhabitants are victims of discrimination, being seen as stereotypes not fitting in with the local Bulgarian lifestyle and culture. They live in squalid conditions, with social, housing, and health problems at critically dangerous levels.
Stolipinovo, being surrounded by hostility and an atmosphere of increasing nationalist sentiment, stands as a portrait of systematic discrimination in Europe in the 21st century.