A journalistic check by “Za Istinata” in the Roma neighborhood “Karmen” in Kazanlak provoked aggression from its residents due to the questions asked about vote-buying practices and the photographs taken.
Residents repeatedly asked the reporter which media outlet he was from and why he did not go to other places in the city, but specifically to them.
“You come to the neighborhood only when there are elections,” the Roma said. “But we have nothing to tell you because we haven’t voted in a long time. When elections approach, they arrive here and promise us various things, and then they forget. That’s why we haven’t voted for years,” said one of them, sitting with a beer in front of a small café in the neighborhood.
Later, the reporter was approached by an SUV with hunting lights while he was talking to a group of young Roma. The person from the SUV asked him to identify himself and explained that he worked in England but had come back briefly because he had a newborn. However, instead of returning home, he continued to roam the ghetto.
The pastor of the neighborhood, who was interviewed for the publication a few years ago, also stopped by the reporter from “Za Istinata” with his car. He refused to give another interview, explaining:
“It’s dangerous; you can see that there’s a war going on between Jews and Muslims.” We did not understand how the war in Gaza relates to the elections in Kazanlak and the participation of the Roma in the vote, but we asked him how he works with the local authorities. He clearly replied that regardless of who becomes the future mayor of the municipality, he would be seeking their cooperation.
In the question of why nothing has changed in the ghetto for years and why we still see the same misery as three years ago when the reporter was last there, he received an answer from a man who turned to him with a counter-question:
“Do you know that during the Covid-19 pandemic, all the entrances to the ghetto were concreted and guarded by gendarmerie, and afterward, only one of the entrances was opened?” Following this, the reporter from “Za Istinata” was directed to the well-known Roma block named “Karmen,” built during the years of the totalitarian regime, to see how the Roma have been living there without water for nearly ten years.
About ten meters from the block, several women sitting outside to enjoy the late autumn sun denied that anyone was paying for votes in favor of one or another candidate for mayor of Kazanlak. However, one of the older Roma women nodded affirmatively to the question of whether the money was not distributed directly, but rather to certain people from the ghetto who then distribute it among the others.
Later, two men arrived claiming to be municipal security, although only one of them identified himself. They asked the reporter to do the same, after which they were shown official IDs from “Za Istinata” and the Association of European Journalists – Bulgaria.
And got scary – one of the men started screaming that the reporter had no right to enter the ghetto during the elections and threatened to call 112, claiming that the questions being asked constituted campaigning in favor of one of the candidates.
It took only five minutes for the scandal to draw a crowd of over 50 men, and two more SUVs appeared, effectively surrounding the reporter. Shouts were heard from all sides that he had no business in the ghetto during the elections and needed to leave immediately.
In front of one of the entrances to “Karmen,” where the reporter was talking to two women who confirmed they had been without water for years, the two municipal security guards appeared and began recording video with their phones, continuing to assert that it was campaigning against the current mayor of Kazanlak, Galina Stoyanova.
Before leaving the ghetto, the reporter from “Za Istinata” attempted to call her, but Stoyanova did not answer the call.
