As part of a research project conducted in the spring of 2000 under the guidance of the Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies and the Minority Research Workshop of the Hun-garian Academy of Sciences/ we interviewed four groups of Roma migrating from Roma-nia to Hungary. Here we try to offer at least the sketch of a fuller account of four groups:
the beggars, the trading "Gábor gypsies", the mostly Romanian-speaking Roma workers, and the trading .Hungarian gypsies".
In the conversations we had with our interviewees we tried to find an answer to the following questions: what makes these people migrate; what is their economic situation and their family background; how, and from whom, do they get their information; which group of gypsies do they belong to;what is their opinion of Hungary; do they come here to settle down or for some temporary purpose; where and under what conditions do they stay in Hungary; do they regard their migration as successful?
BEGGARS
The beggar family we examined belongs to the tribe which is called 'drizár' in the classi-fication used in Hungary. Their traditional trade was wiring and tinkering. The members of the group spoke only Romanian and Romany (we talked to them in Romany).
The family carne to Hungary from Hunyad county, Romania, where they live in a gypsy community of20-30 families on a gypsy estate situated next to a ri ver. Those speaking the gypsy language live on one side of the river, those who do not speak the gypsy language on the other side.
The economic situation of the two groups is rather similar. They live in poor huts (built from adobe bricks and without any modem conveniences), which regularly get wet or get a leak after heavy rain, and are exposed to the danger of being washed away if the river floods.
Communication between the two groups is rather sparse and reserved. Their separation was obvious during their stay in Hungary. The group was 'based' in a park outside a railway
1 An abbreviated version of this case study was published in the 2000/10 issue ofMozgá Világ (pp.lOI-l04.) 2Editor's flore: This establishment is now called 'Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute of Minority Research - Centre for International Migration and Refugee Studies'.
station in Budapest, a kind of island in the middie of busy motor roads, where they slept, had their meals, relaxed, washed their clothes and dried them spread across the lawn. They could leave the park in any direction, if need be. They had been attacked twice since their last arrival here. They described their aggressors as 'cornmandos'. The attackers beat the men, kicked the women and shouted that they should go back to Romania. The gypsies ran to the railway station for temporary shelter.
When asked why they do not rent a room or a fiat, they said: .Even if we had money for that, we would be crammed in with people who do not speak the gypsy language, or with Romanians." (i.e., non-gypsies), They think they would be exposed to constant quarrels.
They are also afraid of other groups because they think they are thieves.
At the time the interview was being conducted, there were two other groups in the park additional to the group ofthree families we were interviewing. Their sharp separation was evident. The families we were interviewing said they (i.e. those who speak Romanian as weil as the gypsy language) 'Iived' at one edge of the park, while the other edge of the park 'housed' two larger families of gypsies who spoke only Romanian. The third group in the park was made up of 'Romanian Romanians'.
AlI members of our group were illiterate. At home, they make their living by begging as weIl as colleeting and selIing cardboard paper and aluminium plates. Before the social transformation of 1989 their situation in Romania was not as vulnerable as it is now. The men used to work in factories as unskilIed hands, and made some additional money by engaging in traditional gypsy trades (such as sharpening, tinkering and tin-plating. Today not only is unemployment wide-spread but traditional trades are also disappearing because of the decline of the demand for those products.
What drives them to come to Hungary is economic necessity. They use up the money they make for their every-day needs while they are here. There is nothing to take back home.
They have to migrate because the 'begging markets' are full up at home during the surnmer.
The begging Roma come to Hungary with their entire families. Only the eldest stay behind. Migrant beggars are normally between 16 and 45 years of age. Those above 45 rarely take the journey across the border. They find it tiring and riddled with various dif-ficulties.
They think migrating to several countries is very tiring and demanding especialIy for the children. In addition, they are exposed to a variety of atrocities on the train both from gypsies and non-gypsies (for instance passengers do not sit next to them; they have to travel on the gangway etc.).
Their journey to Hungary involved a lot of trouble. They first wanted to go to Poland, but they were not given permission to enter the country so they changed their plans and carne to Hungary.
The group had no 'capital' either in money or contacts to rely on. The money they make by begging is enough only to secure a day-to-day living.
How were they able to get to Hungary in the first place?
They always travel by train. Their 'technique' oftravelling is based, first and foremost, on the fact that they do not have enough money for the tickets, and involves bribing the conductor with the money they do have. An agreement is struck between them and the conductor, aceording to which the gypsies get off when ticket controllers board the train.
They then wait tili the next rain comes and everything starts anew (bargaining with the
conductor etc.). As none of them speaks Hungarian, they have to rely on the help of a Hungarian-speaking gypsy from Romania.
There is a non-gypsy Romanian woman travelling with the group. She has been driven away by her husband and these people allowed her to join them. They have thrown in their lot with each other. Speaking only Romanian, the woman hopes she will bump into someone who will take her to Italy.
Romanian begging gypsies come with visas which allow them to stay for a month only.
They come with tourist pass ports with one-month visas, then retum to Romania to get another visa for a month and come back again. They shuttle from spring to autumn. When it gets cold their 'accommodation' becomes too inconvenient to bear.
Actual begging is the task of women. One particular woman with one particular child begs in a place for three hours, then another woman with another child takes over. They may not leave the place which has been chosen. The begging spots they typicaIly choose are outside churches, at markets, around hotels and coach stations. When they are 'off duty', they usually beg while walking in the street. During their three hours of 'duty' they make a maximum of 500 HUF. They sometimes get food or clothing in addition to, or instead of, money. Women always give their eamings to their husbands.
The begging gypsies also shared with us their opinion of Hungarians. They think there is a small part of Hungarian society which is ready to help the poor and the downtrodden, but the majority look down with disdain on a beggar sitting on the ground with a child on her arm who 'mooches for alms'. By contrast, Hungarian gypsies are helpful, Although the beggars' group had no genuine contacts with them, they said Hungarian gypsies were always ready to reach out a helping hand, giving them money or food.
In fact, we have seen this with our own eyes. During a preliminary conversation that we had with a gypsy women, a middle-aged Hungarian gypsy man with his wife and child tumed up, gave the women 100 HUF and asked her in Romany whether we were harass-ing her. She said we had just helped her, too. The gypsy man looked at us with an air of disbelief, and it was not until we told him in Romany about our relationship with the beg-gar woman that he seemed really reassured.
Romanian begging gypsies have no wish to settle down in Hungary despite the fact that they live in abject poverty in Romania. One of the reasons they gave for this disinclina-tion was the fact that the non-Roma populadisinclina-tion in Romania had more under standing for them than the Hungarians here.
THE 'GÁBORS'
Aceording to the linguistic classification used in Hungary the merchant Gábor gypsies be long to the 'kelderash' tribe of Vlach gypsies. Forming a very elosed community, the kelderash are the group which have the strongest attachment to their language and tradi-tion. Their ancestors engaged in the traditional trades of making braziers and other copper objects. This trade is still carried on by many of them in Transylvania but the demand for their products has be en decreasing.
The Gábor gypsies come to Hungary to engage in commercial activities. They reported good commercial contacts with non-gypsies both in Romania and Hungary, but their close
contacts are restricted to other Gábor gypsies (endogamy). These contacts are strongly influenced also by the place on the "economic ladder" . They were coming to Hungary regularly before the social transformation, attending the fairs held in major towns (Szeged, Békéscsaba, Debrecen).
Ali ofthem speak good Romany, Romanian and Hungarian. Thepater familias and the sons always have 8 years completed at primary school. The women can only read and write.
The members of the family we interviewed sell shoes. They buy the merchandise in Romania or Hungary (e.g. at Chinese markets), but they als o have merchandise from other countries (e.g. Italy, Germany or Slovakia). Selling the shoes is the men's task. Women and children sell flatware, pots and panso They partly peddle or address prospective customers in the streets oftown or city centres.
The family is very mobile. If business goes badly in Hungary, the men switch to neigh-bouring countries and try to sell there the merchandise they have bought.
Better-off Gábor gypsies come to Hungary by car and sell their goods in various parts of the country. They always buy their merchandise on the basis of well-founded informa-tion about the place or places where they will sell. They get this informainforma-tion through the phone, which may be the ordinary telephone installed in their flats or houses or the mobile phone. Their destinations are set by the merchandise they have. Contacts in the target countries (those giving them accommodation) are usually arranged beforehand, and the Gábors have their own capital, so the only organisational task they have is to get the re-quired documents (e.g. work permits).
The Gábor gypsies usually rent rooms or flats from well-to-do Vlach gypsies (merchants) here in Hungary, with whom they have long-standing contacts. A room of four metres by four metres (such as a detached kitchen used during the summer) usually costs forty to fifty thousand HUF a month. They have built up such contacts with non-gypsies as weil, from whom they usually re nt small flats (two rooms, one small,· one reasonably sized) in big blocks of flats on modem housing estates for sixty to seventy thousand HUF a month.
There is a certain price to be paid for these rented flats, however. In order to be 'ad-mitted' by a non-Roma family, they have to shed their markedly gypsy characteristics: the men have to give up wearing their wide-brimmed black hats, exchange their vests for jackets and the women have to slip into dresses, which are simple and long, instead of their colourful, ample skirts. (This can be viewed as a kind of first stage in forced assimilation.) When they go back to Romania, however, they look the part of true Gábor gypsies again.
The economic situation in Hungary is better than in Romania but here in Hungary non-gypsies have more of a negative attitude to "strangers". The Gábors can make their living at home in Romania. They have their own houses and cars. But if they do business in Hungary, their income is several times more than the money they have invested. When they go to Western countries, they do it for the purpose of business, without any intention to settle down. Hard as life may be in Romania, they think ofit as their mother country.
WORKERS
Romanian Roma workers sell their labour force in Moszkva tér in Budapest in the hope that they can send their families at home enough money to give them the bare necessities.
We talked to nine men in Romany. Ali the men, between 18 and 40, said they were of gypsy descent, but only two of them spoke the gypsy language. Three said they had a family at home in Romania (two to three children), the other six were living with their parents or were divorced. AlI lived in very poor housing (houses made from adobe bricks with a kitchen and one room, without modem conveniences). Two of the nine men were skilIed (wall-painter, mason), the others semi-skilIed workers. They found no jobs in Romania, where they get no unemployment benefit. (Their wives and children at home go begging.) They usualIy spend one or two weeks here, depending on their success in finding a job.
Those who have been lucky come here again on a regular basis. Mediators in Hungary speak both Romanian and Hungarian. Most of them are Romanian Hungarians rather than gypsies.
The 'working Roma' we interviewed alI carne to Hungary by train. They asked people
around the railway station (Nyugati pályaudvar) where they could find 'piazza romana', i.e. the 'Romanian market' . Somebody put them on the number four tram and saw them to Moszkva tér, the official name ofwhich they did not even know.
To cover travel expenses they take a loan (worth 20,000 HUF) on rather harsh terms:
they have to pay back double by a specified deadline. They give half of it to the family who stay home and take the other half with them for the joumey. Their only chance to avoid a homeless lifestyle is to find work very soon.
What is at stake in the migrating strategy of Romanian working gypsies is sheer physi-cal 'survival'. Many in the group told us they had worked in Turkey, where they had the opportunity to selI one of their inner organs, but they were not willing to make money at such a cost.
ParadoxicalIy enough, the main facilitators for the Romanian working gypsies in Hun-gary - the middIemen - are at the same time their main hindrance. Their situation remains for ever hopeless: they can nev er get rid of the dependence involved in working abroad without official papers. The middleman 'is entitled' to take off 1000 HUF of the 3-5,000 they make a day. If the middleman finds them 'Iasting' work, he wilI be satisfied with less, e.g. 20,000 HUF for ajob that lasts a month. 'Normal' accommodation for the night (co st ing 2000 HUF) is almost beyond their means; a bath may cost them up to 1000.
Even such an exploited work relationship is not secured for them. Police make regular raids in Moszkva tér and drive them off the place.
Everyone in the group we interviewed had the experience that people in Hungary were not helpfuI (for instance, nobody helped them at a post office when they wanted to buy a phone card).
'HUNGARIAN GYPSIES'
Why do the members of the group we examined identify themselves as 'Hungarian gypsies'?
AH of the men we interviewed try to maintain good relations with Hungarians both in Romania and in Hungary. They said they had rather inimicaI relations with Romanians in Romania, but good relations with non-gypsies in Hungary: they have not only tenancy and . maintenance contracts but even marriage contracts with them. At the same time, this does
not mean they are comfortably 'based' in Hungary. They are exposed to daily atrocities on account of their being gypsy.
The 'Hungarian gypsies' who speak not only Romanian but also Hungarian no longer
use Romany in the family (linguistic assimilation). They distinguish themselves both from the Gábors and from the 'Romanian gypsies'. They do not keep contact with them, but they are on greeting terms (e.g. at amarket).
The economic situation of the individual members of the group we interviewed was not identical. T., who sells minerals, is in the best position: he is renting a fiat part of which he sub-lets to Romanian gypsies. R.and E.sell clothes. R.'s circumstances are much poorer:
he has not enough money not only to 'bring over' his 17-year-old daughter but even to pay for the permissions for selling at markets. P. is relatively weil-off, making and repairing musical instruments at home and selling them in Hungary. 8. is in the most difficult situation of ali:he lives from casual jobs and cannot afford to rent a room, staying at various places 'for free'.
As far as the cultural background of gypsies from Romania is concemed, few of them have leamt some trade: T. is aminer, B. is a tractor driver and 8.'s son is a waiter. P.
learnt how to make instruments from his father, not at a school. R. and E. have completed the primary school.
Only E. has her whole family staying in Hungary (her husband is Hungarian, but she is a Romanian citizen). R. is divorced, his daughter lives with the grandparents in Romania, coming to Hungary for briefperiods to see her father now and then.
R.and T. retum to Romania to vis it every thirtieth day. Both live in a rented room here in Hungary. They exemplify one of the characteristic migration strategies of Hungarian gypsies from Romania.
P. lives in Romania and always comes to Hungary for brief periods, living mostly with his migrant brothers or sisters. This exernplifies the other type of migration between Ro-mania and Hungary.
8. do es not go home to Romania. He once went further west (to France), but he finally retumed to Hungary. He does not want to live in Romania; indeed, he would like to bring his family over here for good. T.'s case is similar in certain respects: he, too 'ventured to the West' once and has kept going back ever since whenever he could (e.g. to Denmark).
As far as contacts with other migrants are concemed, B. has the most extensive net-work of cont ac ts of ali our interviewees, both in France and in Hungary, but he, too keeps close contacts with Hungarian gypsies only. Similarly, T. has a number of such contacts, renting rooms to gypsies who come to Hungary from Romania. R. and E. have kept in
As far as contacts with other migrants are concemed, B. has the most extensive net-work of cont ac ts of ali our interviewees, both in France and in Hungary, but he, too keeps close contacts with Hungarian gypsies only. Similarly, T. has a number of such contacts, renting rooms to gypsies who come to Hungary from Romania. R. and E. have kept in