Pictures of the Day: West Bank and Elsewhere

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Photos from the West Bank, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Syria.

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Kings of the Roma

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To reach a surprising place, follow Route 6 south of Bucharest as it unwinds across the Romanian countryside, past fields of wildflowers and flocks of sheep. Turn west before the Danube River and head toward a grid of neatly laid streets, set down among farms.

This is Buzescu, where a small, prosperous group of Roma lives among mansions and Mercedes.

Like most visitors to Europe, Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky had never heard of Buzescu nor met any wealthy Roma. They thought most Roma â€" often pejoratively called Gypsies â€" were poor and lived in slums on the fringes of big European cities. On a trip to Europe from their home in Ecuador in 2010, they learned about the Roma of Buzescu and set out to see the town.

“We wanted to break the image of Gypsies in the street, begging where the cars stop, stealing whatever they can and living in total poverty,” said Mr. Kashinsky, who lived with his wife, Ms. Gachet, in Buzescu for six weeks to document daily life in the thriving community. “Here, the Roma were not the maids of Romanians, but the Romanians were the maids of the Roma. It was an amazing switch.”

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky In the kitchen on Easter Sunday.

Buzescu itself looks fantastical, like something drawn from the pages of a remixed Grimm’s Fairy Tale. Along the main street, colorful mansions rise four stories, boasting painted columns, pointed towers and sparkling metal roofs. Shiny BMWs sit in their adjacent driveways, and marble lions stand guard at the gates.

The palatial homes belong to the Kalderash, a once-itinerant group of Roma who made their fortune trading metal across Eastern Europe after the collapse of Communism.

“When Communism fell,” a Roma man told the photographers, “you had to be dumb not to make money.”

So the Kalderash, whose name means “coppersmith” in Romani, went to work, traveling across Eastern Europe, dismantling abandoned factories and selling the scrap metal for handsome profits. Until recently, some Kalderash also roamed the countryside in traditional horse-drawn caravans, peddling handcrafted cazanes â€" copper stills for brewing brandy â€" for hundreds of dollars each.

Today, the lavish mansions lining the streets of Buzescu, an otherwise modest farm town, are a testament to the wealth of a people deeply impoverished elsewhere in Europe and widely condemned as beggars and thieves.

The Roma have faced oppression and violence since their ancestors came to Europe from India centuries ago. During the Holocaust, the Nazis exterminated Romani people by the hundreds of thousands. In 2010, France’s president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, deported thousands of Roma and bulldozed their encampments. His successor, François Hollande, has continued the expulsions. Roma communities face discrimination in Romania too, as evidenced by recent forced evictions across the country.

Given their painful history, many families in Buzescu are wary of new arrivals like Ms. Gachet and Mr. Kashinsky. Even after one family offered the couple a place to stay, many of the wealthiest residents refused to let them inside their houses.

“A lot of people were scared of us,” Ms. Gachet said. “They thought we were thieves.”

But the couple persisted, slowly gaining trust and access. Luckily, they shared a language with the residents of Buzescu. Like Ms. Gachet, who is from Quito, Ecuador, and Mr. Kashinsky, who is from Los Angeles, many Roma speak Spanish â€" they have been traveling back and forth to Spain for work since Romania joined the European Union in 2007.

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky Romika Lancu fixed his horse cart on the back roads of Buzescu.

It also helped to work as a team.

“When we do stories together, Ivan usually gets more access with men, and I get more access with women,” Ms. Gachet said. “A Roma girl couldn’t walk down the street with Ivan because that would have been bad for her, and I couldn’t just go into a casino with a whole bunch of guys.”

As the doors of Buzescu swung open, Ms. Gachet and Mr. Kashinsky said, they revealed fantastic abundance â€" winding staircases that led to vast rooms with marble floors and heavy chandeliers â€" but also great emptiness.

“They build these giant houses,” Mr. Kashinsky said. “But they don’t really use them.”

Many parents and teenagers still have to leave Buzescu to find work or conduct business elsewhere in Europe, leaving only elders and young children to live in the outsize homes. Even when families do reunite for holidays or funerals, they tend to congregate in small rooms toward the back of their houses, using outdoor kitchens and bathrooms rather than those inside. Some of the mansions with ornate facades remain unfurnished â€" or even unfinished â€" inside.

Despite the signs of modernity in Buzescu, the Roma still abide by many of their age-old customs. Family is of utmost importance. Holidays are faithfully observed. Schooling is irregular, work is encouraged from a young age and girls are married while in their teens.

“We were there for funerals, for Easter and for their Day of the Dead,” Mr. Kashinsky said. “Even though they all had BMWs and Armani clothes and are really modern in a lot of ways, they really hung tight to their traditions.”

In many ways, the photographers said, the opulence in Buzescu was simply for show, a demonstration of individual pride and a communal challenge to the perception of Roma as Europe’s lowest caste.

“Being Roma, they can’t just go out there to the world and get a job anywhere,” Ms. Gachet said. “The lady we lived with said: ‘Karla, my kids are not going to be lawyers and doctors. You need to understand that. We need to give them tools to survive in our world, and that’s money.’ They don’t get the opportunities that everybody else gets. They’re so discriminated against in their own country.”

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky Small houses abut unfinished mansions on the back streets of Buzescu.

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Kings of the Roma

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

To reach a surprising place, follow Route 6 south of Bucharest as it unwinds across the Romanian countryside, past fields of wildflowers and flocks of sheep. Turn west before the Danube River and head toward a grid of neatly laid streets, set down among farms.

This is Buzescu, where a small, prosperous group of Roma lives among mansions and Mercedes.

Like most visitors to Europe, Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky had never heard of Buzescu nor met any wealthy Roma. They thought most Roma â€" often pejoratively called Gypsies â€" were poor and lived in slums on the fringes of big European cities. On a trip to Europe from their home in Ecuador in 2010, they learned about the Roma of Buzescu and set out to see the town.

“We wanted to break the image of Gypsies in the street, begging where the cars stop, stealing whatever they can and living in total poverty,” said Mr. Kashinsky, who lived with his wife, Ms. Gachet, in Buzescu for six weeks to document daily life in the thriving community. “Here, the Roma were not the maids of Romanians, but the Romanians were the maids of the Roma. It was an amazing switch.”

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky In the kitchen on Easter Sunday.

Buzescu itself looks fantastical, like something drawn from the pages of a remixed Grimm’s Fairy Tale. Along the main street, colorful mansions rise four stories, boasting painted columns, pointed towers and sparkling metal roofs. Shiny BMWs sit in their adjacent driveways, and marble lions stand guard at the gates.

The palatial homes belong to the Kalderash, a once-itinerant group of Roma who made their fortune trading metal across Eastern Europe after the collapse of Communism.

“When Communism fell,” a Roma man told the photographers, “you had to be dumb not to make money.”

So the Kalderash, whose name means “coppersmith” in Romani, went to work, traveling across Eastern Europe, dismantling abandoned factories and selling the scrap metal for handsome profits. Until recently, some Kalderash also roamed the countryside in traditional horse-drawn caravans, peddling handcrafted cazanes â€" copper stills for brewing brandy â€" for hundreds of dollars each.

Today, the lavish mansions lining the streets of Buzescu, an otherwise modest farm town, are a testament to the wealth of a people deeply impoverished elsewhere in Europe and widely condemned as beggars and thieves.

The Roma have faced oppression and violence since their ancestors came to Europe from India centuries ago. During the Holocaust, the Nazis exterminated Romani people by the hundreds of thousands. In 2010, France’s president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, deported thousands of Roma and bulldozed their encampments. His successor, François Hollande, has continued the expulsions. Roma communities face discrimination in Romania too, as evidenced by recent forced evictions across the country.

Given their painful history, many families in Buzescu are wary of new arrivals like Ms. Gachet and Mr. Kashinsky. Even after one family offered the couple a place to stay, many of the wealthiest residents refused to let them inside their houses.

“A lot of people were scared of us,” Ms. Gachet said. “They thought we were thieves.”

But the couple persisted, slowly gaining trust and access. Luckily, they shared a language with the residents of Buzescu. Like Ms. Gachet, who is from Quito, Ecuador, and Mr. Kashinsky, who is from Los Angeles, many Roma speak Spanish â€" they have been traveling back and forth to Spain for work since Romania joined the European Union in 2007.

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky Romika Lancu fixed his horse cart on the back roads of Buzescu.

It also helped to work as a team.

“When we do stories together, Ivan usually gets more access with men, and I get more access with women,” Ms. Gachet said. “A Roma girl couldn’t walk down the street with Ivan because that would have been bad for her, and I couldn’t just go into a casino with a whole bunch of guys.”

As the doors of Buzescu swung open, Ms. Gachet and Mr. Kashinsky said, they revealed fantastic abundance â€" winding staircases that led to vast rooms with marble floors and heavy chandeliers â€" but also great emptiness.

“They build these giant houses,” Mr. Kashinsky said. “But they don’t really use them.”

Many parents and teenagers still have to leave Buzescu to find work or conduct business elsewhere in Europe, leaving only elders and young children to live in the outsize homes. Even when families do reunite for holidays or funerals, they tend to congregate in small rooms toward the back of their houses, using outdoor kitchens and bathrooms rather than those inside. Some of the mansions with ornate facades remain unfurnished â€" or even unfinished â€" inside.

Despite the signs of modernity in Buzescu, the Roma still abide by many of their age-old customs. Family is of utmost importance. Holidays are faithfully observed. Schooling is irregular, work is encouraged from a young age and girls are married while in their teens.

“We were there for funerals, for Easter and for their Day of the Dead,” Mr. Kashinsky said. “Even though they all had BMWs and Armani clothes and are really modern in a lot of ways, they really hung tight to their traditions.”

In many ways, the photographers said, the opulence in Buzescu was simply for show, a demonstration of individual pride and a communal challenge to the perception of Roma as Europe’s lowest caste.

“Being Roma, they can’t just go out there to the world and get a job anywhere,” Ms. Gachet said. “The lady we lived with said: ‘Karla, my kids are not going to be lawyers and doctors. You need to understand that. We need to give them tools to survive in our world, and that’s money.’ They don’t get the opportunities that everybody else gets. They’re so discriminated against in their own country.”

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky Small houses abut unfinished mansions on the back streets of Buzescu.

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