Roma are five or six different peoples. A big part of them are Muslims, we call them Horohane-Roma – ‘Turkish Roma.’ They are not like the real Turkish who live in Kardjali, Razgrad and other districts. The Turkish are very religious: they respect Koran and go to the mosque, while Horohane-Roma once are religious, once are not. Some of them – for example these in Sliven speak both Turkish and Romani while other Horohane-Roma from Pleven, Svistov, Dryanovo, etc., speak only Turkish. They have forgotten Romani.
We are Dassikane Roma – Bulgarian Roma, Christians, nomad gypsies. I am from the Kaldarshi – Vretenari. Our fathers moved from village to village. Some of them were craftsmen, some were not. But people chased them from everywhere and ruined their camps. When they were chased from one village they went to another and made the camps there again. But as they were poor they used to make troubles – steal a hen, for example, and the people would chase them again. Therefore they were wandering from village to village.
More precisely our predecessors were occupied with comb-making and horse-stealing. For instance, they would steal from here (Dryanovo) or from Pleven horses, make false scars on them and go to Plovdiv. They sell them there, steal other horses and sell them here. But they were usually soon imprisoned and thus left their wives and children alone and hungry…
Our predecessors used to marry by selling and buying girls. A girl could fall in love with somebody, to love him much, but she would marry to him only if her father would allow her. And it was more important for the father who would offer more money for the girl. Once when I was a boy I asked my father and grand father. Why do you do this? They explained me that it was a custom from the Turkish time. The Turkish did so and we copied it from them.
When quarrels appeared among us, kaldarashi, a gypsy court was gathered – meshere (Kris Romani). The elder gathered and decided on the quarrel. For example, if somebody would steal a young girl, the meshere would call him and punish him to pay twice the price of the girl. If he had no money or did not want to obey – they would even kill him.
The second group of nomad gypsies are Burgudjii. They did not travel with carts but on horse backs. They put the luggage on the horse and 5-6 families with 5-6 horses would go to some village. They also had tents with special beams, cut exactly to match to each other and thus form a camp. When they moved from one village to another they took the beams and did not cut new.
The Burgudji also married buying and selling women. They however did not do it during the whole year like us but on a special day. They gathered on the Day of the Holy Virgin (August 28th) – from 50 to 100 nomad camps and the bargaining for the girls started. It used to be a big feast. Each girl was dressed in the most beautiful dress she had.
There is one more group of Christian nomad gypsies – Dzhezvedjii (Turkish coffee-pot-makers). They are also nomads. Their fathers also wandered from one village to another. They earned their living by making Turkish coffee-pots. Each Thursday they gathered to sell girls. These are the groups of Dassikane Roma.
A more special group of nomad gypsies are Reshetari (riddle-makers). They also traveled, but they were Muslims, Turkish Roma. They made riddles for bean, lance, and so on.
The nomad gypsies wandered the whole summer. At the beginning of the wintered, when it became cold, they hired empty houses in some village and spent the snow months there. But immediately after the first Sunday before Lent, when the weather became warm, they hit the road again. The used to live like this until the beginning of the 50-ies when a state decree was issued that all Roma should settle.
We, the Roma, have many feasts. We celebrate Bango Vassili – St. Basil’s Day. It is celebrate by all Roma, but mostly by Burgudjii. They used onn this day (January, 13/14) to take out and show all money, jewelry, everything precious they had and cast spells. But there were bad people too who used the feast to steal what was shown.
We, the Grebenari, celebrated Bango Vassili more modestly. The women used to make banitza (a special kind of home-made bread), the men took cornel-tree and we made sourvaknitsa (decorated cornel twig used by children to tap people’s backs when wishing them a Happy New Year).