MACEDONIA: SHUTKA
Click here to view photographs from Shutka…
Shuto Orizari, or Shutka, is a particularly lively Gypsy neighbourhood to the North edge of Skopje in Macedonia. After an earthquake in 1963 the entire Roma population of Skopje were ‘deported voluntarily’ to Shutka. It is now probably the largest Gypsy enclave in Europe, where at least 20,000 Roma live, but the inhabitants themselves will tell you there’s more like 50,000 people living here. Shutka is not a “favela-type slum” as Kusturica’s feature movie “Time of the Gypsies” implies, but rather a real village which will eventually be swallowed by the expanding Skopje. Shutka has the occasional rich inhabitant: you can spot some expensive cars and better houses here. The area is provided with electricity and sewerage (in contrast to some slums in
Belgrade). There is also a Roma elementary school with 1,900 students and the village has a Rom-mayor.
At first impressions Shutka does seem a rather ‘heavy’ place to be (in the eyes of a spoiled Dutchman at least) but outer appearances can deceive. The district is populated by warm-hearted people who will invite strangers in their homes – maybe more than once – and they will be treated to a cup of coffee or even a meal. The chance that you have to spend an hour looking at family and wedding photographs is a risk you’ll have to take. Wedding parties abound here and they are invariably accompanied by a Zurla-Tapan ensemble that will keep the rest of the village from having a good night’s sleep…
(You can read a much more poetic description of Shutka on Garth Cartwright’s website)
A junk market is held every week in Skopje. Here some Roma try to sell worthless old crap that very probably originates from the city’s refuse dump. At this market I meet Afrim, who tries to tell me in poor German something about the region of Izbegliča in Kosovo where he originally comes from. There his house was burned down by Albanian Kosovars, as a result of which he had to flee to Shutka. He also tells me that he is an “Egyptian” and for this reason cannot speak freely at the market – something on which I would get more information later. He invites us to visit his brother, Ragip, in Shutka.
With the map which Afrim had drawn for me, we find the house of Ragip, where we are warmly welcomed. He also does his utmost best to converse in poor German and English and fluent Serbian (which we don’t speak whatsoever) about who he is and where he came from. In former days, Ragip and his family lived in Kosovo, but eight years ago were deported to Macedonia, together with thousands of Roma, Aeskhali and Egyptians, all referred to as “Gypsies” by the Albanian majority.
Kosovo consists of 90% ethnic Albanians and 10% Serbians, but Kosovo is considered by Serbians as the cradle of Serbia, which is the reason why the Yugoslav regime tried to eliminate the Albanian Liberation Army in 1997 by means of a military offensive. In the process they have taken the opportunity to do some ethnic cleansing against the Albanian majority. In ’99 NATO forced Serbia onto its knees by means of bombardments, which then gave the Albanian Kosovars the opportunity, in return, to immediately attempt to purify the region of Serbs. The Roma in Kosovo were accused of collaboration with the Serbs and that’s why Ragip and his family were deported to Shutka shortly after their house had been burned down by the Albanian Kosovars.
Ragip, who is in his fifties, seems like an intelligent man to me and has lived a better life in Kosovo than today in Shutka – and so has been in the soup for the last eight years. He is continuously busy with refugee passes etc., and tries to exploit the refugee status of his family as much as possible to get his children out of the country and into Western Europe, in the hope that they can have a better life there. The Macedonian government, as well, doesn’t really want these refugees, according to the story of Dzavit (Ragip’s son) who at the moment works at the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest. They will probably never be able to return to Kosovo.
Ragip is very keen on letting us know that he is not a Rom-Gypsy, but an Egjiptian – an Albanian term for “Balkan Egyptian”. He tells us that Balkan Egyptians do not have any ancestors who came from India, like other Roma. They came from Egypt. In former days they were considered as part of the Roma nationality, but are nowadays recognised as a separate ethnic group. However, scientific evidence for their origin is hard to find, but Ragip does his best in telling me that the Macedonian flag, which depicts the sun, represents Ra – the Egyptian god of the sun. A Macedonian banknote depicts an Egyptian statue, according to him. He shows me a book containing an unclear black and white photograph of a skeleton which has been found in Ohrid that has been identified as Egyptian. I have not been convinced, but nevertheless: what certainly distinguishes the Egyptians from the other Roma in Shutka is that they do not speak Romani, but Albanian – and they pray in Arabic. Furthermore I cannot escape from the impression that Ragip and family are more Arab than Indian-looking, as far as I can tell…
What also separates the Egjiptians from the rest is that most of them have to live under piteous circumstances, in an alley built of waste materials. Ragip describes this as “Mahala in a Mahala”, and shakes his head mumbling “katastrofe… katastrofe…” He and his family, luckily, found relatively better housing, although they must pay more rent than any “real Roma”. Balkan Egyptians can be discriminated by other Roma and are called “Magjup” – a pejorative term. One of Ragip’s sons later tells me why Afrim could not speak freely at the junk market the day before in Skopje. If the Roma at the market were to find out that Afrim is an Egjiptian, he is at risk of being beaten up by them.
During my stay in Skopje/Shutka it becomes rather clear that the safety situation in Macedonia still leaves something to be desired. During a bus ride to Shutka a car crashes almost head-on to the decrepit citybus we were sitting in. During a previous short visit to Skopje I witnessed a car crashing off the road and ending up between the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Later that day we notice a funeral procession in Shutka, only consisting of men. We want to follow the procession, but a small boy warns us not to do that and makes shooting gestures and noises – probably implying that the deceased died of a gunshot.
Still later during a second visit to Ragip, a boy who speaks good English tells us that the evening before, in downtown Skopje, there had been a shooting in an Internet Cafe. Then Ragip tells us that in Kumanovo, thirty kilometres north of Skopje, three Macedonian policemen were shot in their car by militant Albanese. As a consequence one policeman has died, another one is in a state of coma, and the third slightly wounded. Elvis Bunjaku, whose mother invited us for coffee, shows a gunshot wound in his back which was inflicted upon him in Albania. While crossing the border from Macedonia to Serbia we see large stickers depicting an image of an automatic rifle with a red bar through it. Prohibited to transport kalasnjikovs… So many incidents in such a short time make us believe that Macedonia must still have considerable problems with gun control. It seems that here almost anyone can possess a weapon. The government tries to convince people to hand in their weapons to them, but in such an unstable region I doubt that anyone would be very much inclined to do so…
Click here to view photographs from Shutka…
MACEDONIA: HERDELEZI IN SHUTKA
Click here for the censored version of the video…
Video-footage of Herdelezi or Djurdjevdan, in Šutka (Šuto Orizari). Šutka is located in Skopje, Macedonia. It is currently one of the largest Roma settlements of the world.
Herdelezi is the most important feast for the Roma of former Yugoslavia, and it marks the beginning of summer. Before the first day of the celebrations, the Roma do some spring cleaning and some paint their houses.
Macedonian Roma are predominantly muslims, but oddly enough during Herdelezi many can be found at the Sveti Jovan orthodox christian church in Skopje. It can be quite crowded there, and among the visitors are some musicians and a lot of dating teenagers. Many Roma also come here to drink water from the holy spring behind the church, it’s believed to bring health and good luck for the next year. However if you take into account the general health conditions of the Roma in Macedonia, one doubts that the holy water has any healing qualities whatsoever.
The sheep and lambs in Šutka are not very lucky that day, to say the least, because they are butchered in the middle of the street, which turns some streets into a river of blood. The video contains graphic images of a sheep being slaugtered, so if you can’t take that, I would strongly advise you not to watch the video. It’s just how things are in Šutka. For people who do have an exceptionally strong stomach: here’s the more brutal version…
During Herdelezi the football field in the middle of the village doubles as a luna park. On the fourth day, there is a concert with some Roma singers and their backing band, who call themseves “Mladi Kristali” or “The Young Crystals”. Roma musicians in Šutka often earn substantial amounts of money. About 30 percent of Macedonian singers that are shown on TV, come from Šutka. They live there in big kitchy houses, at a stone’s throw of the shantytownlike dwellings of their poorer neighbours.
Click here for the censored version of the video…
NOTE: I was not exactly born a writer. A much better description of Šutka can be found at the website of Garth Cartwright
