One rural Romanian village’s main street is filled with unexpectedly opulent and luxurious homes. The Roma, a people of Northern Indian origin who are not to be confused with Ethnic Romanians, inhabit many of these houses in Buzescu.

While Roma are often associated with a nomadic lifestyle, many were enslaved by the Crown centuries ago. After slavery was abolished in Romania in the mid-19th century, some Roma remained in the country to make a living as metal smiths. Such people, known as the Kalderash, constitute a large portion of Roma in the Balkans.

After the fall of the communist regime in the late 1980s, the entrepreneurial Kalderash of Buzescu began stripping abandoned factories of metal to sell for scrap in a then-largely unregulated market. As symbols of their newfound wealth, the scrap dealers built increasingly large and whimsically designed mansions, often in traditional Romanian architectural styles. The largest are five stories tall and took several years to build. 

Despite owning modern houses and cars, many Roma still live by traditional social norms. For instance, older Roma do not always use indoor bathrooms because it’s considered taboo to cook and use a toilet under the same roof. (There are separate outhouses for the latter purpose.)