global-musings

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Film: The Hidden Half (Nimeh-ye Penhan/نيمه پنهان)

Year: 2001

Country: Iran

Director: Tahmineh Milani

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Edirne, Turkey

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Film: The Legend of Suram Fortress

Location: Soviet Union/Georgian SSR

Director: Sergei Parajanov and Dodo Abashidze

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Yazidi men in embrace

Location: Iraqi Kurdistan

Photographer: Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak

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Nivia Gonzalez | Mexican American

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Bulgarian woman

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Celebration in Shutka

The Roma began moving out of Northern India more than 2000 years ago, spreading throughout Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. Now numbering around 15 million, they face discrimination and live on the outskirts of society in every land they call home. The Roma are a people without a country. There is, however, one place where the Roma flag flies; in Shutka, Macedonia. 

With the largest concentrated Roma population in the world, Shutka is the only municipality in Europe with Romani as its official language. Five miles from the modern center of Skopje, Macedonia, yet a world apart in terms of culture and economy lies Suto Orizari, or “Shutka.” This rough mishmash of small homes and dilapidated shanties is home to an estimated 50,000 people. The streets are full of life, the air is thick with smoke from wood fires and burning trash, Turkish pop music blares from boom boxes strategically placed on street corners and from open car doors, men yell greetings across the potholed streets and from horse-drawn carts. Shutka was founded after the massive earthquake of 1963 that left most of Skopje’s Roma homeless and without any possession. To house the newly homeless the Red Cross built temporary metal huts on the outskirts of the city, many of which are still inhabited today. Relatives of people who were moved to the new town wanted to be closer to their families and began a population boom that made Shutka what it is today.

Photographer: Sabrina Budon

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Photographs from villages on Mountain Bjelašnica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1970′s Part II

Muslim inhabitants of these villages lived an isolated way of life away from modernization, surviving off agriculture and wearing traditional clothes that they produced by hand. Medieval tombstones called stećci found in this area suggest that these landscapes have been inhabited for centuries. Most of the villages were pillaged and burnt down when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina started in 1992, and it’s inhabitants fled in fear for their lives. Today they are scarcely populated and some are completely abandoned.

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Details of Macedonian folk dresses. Wonderful!

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Artist:  Andrey Remnev

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Woman pickers rest

Location: Hadhramaut, Yemen

Photographer: Steve McCurry, 1997

Almost all [the] women in the Hadhramout and Do'an valleys are dressed - in black; those on the Highlands and other parts of Hadhramout, prefer black mixed with some colors. They are veiled, gloved and having on tall, straw pointed hats - known as modhalla or by some ghomama (both mean ‘umbrealla’). These special hats, being as high over the head as they are, wide on all sides and made of date palm reed straw, are very suitable for keeping the women cool however hot it is.

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Gorani Bride

The Gorani or Goranci (Cyrillic: Горани or Горанци, meaning Highlanders) are a Slavic Muslim population inhabiting the Gora region - the triangle between Albania, Kosovo and Republic of Macedonia. They speak a South Slavic dialect, part of the transitional Torlakian dialects, called Našinski. The ethnonym Gorani, meaning “highlanders”, is derived from the Slavic toponym gora, which means “hill, mountain”. Another autonym of this people is Našinci, which literally means “our people, our ones”.

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Ruslan and Ludmila 1972

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Bulgarian women dressed in the traditional clothing of the Bulgarians of Banat

The history of the community of Roman Catholics located in three different Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, whose identities and traditions have remained the same in time.

The Bulgarians of Banat are a singular community, currently scattered in three countries: the majority live in south-western Romania, while the others are in the Vojvodina region of Serbia and in the north-western area of Bulgaria. In fact, their name is linked to the historical region of Banat, now located between Romania and Serbia, at the time part of the House of Habsburg. 

In 1688 Bulgarian Catholics organized the Cirpovzi revolt against the Turkish rulers, stifled by the Ottomans with extreme cruelty. The inhabitants were forced to abandon their homes, and guided by their bishops and priests found refuge in the territory of the then House of Habsburg. After an initial period of displacements, in 1738 they settled in the town of Stari Bescenov and in 1741 in Vinga (Romania). “They were granted several privileges by Empress Maria Theresa – said Svetlana Karadzova, mayor of Bardarski Geran and president of the Association of Banat Bulgarians in Bulgaria – this drove also other Catholics from Northern Bulgaria to settle down there.” The mayor went on: “In fact, most of the Catholics in Bulgaria descend from the sect of the Paulicians (similar to the Cathars, ed.’s note) converted by Franciscan friars.” Gradually, the expatriate community grew and expanded in other countries. After the liberation of the Bulgarian state in 1878 many Banat Bulgarians returned to their homeland.

One of the most interesting aspects is the language and writing. The latter, conversely from Cyrillic Bulgarian, adopts a variant adapted to the Latin alphabet. “Banat Bulgarian – said Stoyko Stoykov, linguist – differs from literary Bulgarian in that the former dates back to the period when the community emigrated to Banat”. There are a wide range of books and publications in Banat Bulgarian, from the liturgical to the popular ones. Also the homes are characterised by the [Central European] style, as well as the clothes and cuisine.

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Ethiopian Orthodox Baptism - Nanna Heitmann

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La Llorona | Jayro Bustamante | 2019 | Guatemala

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Mursi girl with a headdress made of corn

Omo Valley, Ethiopia