No sooner have we reached the other side when we see another Rom selling carpets on the corner. He calls us over and asks where we come from. ‘Austria.’ ‘That’s Shengen country, isn’t it?’ he replies, more a statement than a question…

We go for a cup of coffee at an open air restaurant which has a Burberry clone tablecloth in pure acrylic and afterwards we set off for the centre of town with B in search of an internet café we have been told is there. It turns out to be a room hidden at the back of a miniature shopping mall. The room is darkened, there are two rows of computers. It is not really a café but a serious internet game centre. There is only one other user in the room, in the corner. The virtual fallout from gunfire and impact explosions drifts our way. We ask if we can use a computer and get a grunt from the proprietor. He looks like a stereotypical anarchist – tall, thin, bearded with a fiercely displeased look in his eyes and round-shouldered as if he has spent hours tightly embracing his monitor. He is so completely captured by the intricacies of the game he is playing he is loath to even glance up, let alone engage in any social interchange that requires anything other than binary communication. We work for about forty-five minutes. When we offer to pay we get a grunt again, then, ‘20 cents’. It’s the cheapest and fastest internet connection we’ve ever used in Bulgaria.

Afterwards we set off for one of the two Roma areas in Velingrad. This one is guarded by a mural depicting representatives of Bulgarian society, including an Orpheus-like musician. It is called Asphaltova Basa, although there is no asphalt to be seen, the streets being insistently unpaved, the surface at times unruly.

We are made very welcome by the Z family and spend a few hours in their small two-storey house.

M is a drawing teacher though he has also worked in Spain harvesting fruit. He has illustrated a pamphlet about pregnancy and birth control for Roma. He tells us that they do not have enough money for upstairs furniture because, as a teacher, he is only paid about €300 a month while a bus driver gets around €700. His wife H had to travel to Italy for employment. She cared for the elderly there. His daughter used to be an assistant teacher responsible for the Roma children in the class but she is now married with a small child.