Buzescu Gypsy Palaces

Buzescu is a Gypsy Beverly Hills, and on the few hundred yards of Main Street are clustered the fanciful houses of successful Roma families, each one trying to outdo the other with another pinnacle or an extra silvery flourish. Spiky turrets sheathed in beaten metal rise above balconies trimmed with filigree carvings which in turn spring from clusters of plaster columns. Some of them bear the owner's name, picked out in large metal letters and slung between brick chimneys. Many of these tinny mansions have forbiddingly elaborate gates covered in swirling tendrils of wrought iron, outside which large men with dark leather jackets hang about, exuding menace. No-one knows exactly how many Gypsies there are in Romania, numbers vary from half a million to two million, but it's the largest Gypsy population of any European country.