Blonde Roma children

Last night, an activist began to persistently call me with information that once again the Roma had kidnapped a fair-haired child and that they urgently needed to call the police, go to the camp and “beat off” the baby, otherwise they would take it apart for spare parts, like a magical amulet, or just for good luck , and, maybe, for fortune-telling. This is not the first time such appeals have taken place, and in all cases this stereotyped information has never been confirmed. For 5 years, almost every week, I have been in the camp (and we have more than 120 of them in Transcarpathia), and often I have to see the descendants of the Aryans with blond hair (at one time I was also very suspicious of this phenomenon and each time I asked to see evidence of the birth of a baby). And over the years, I have accumulated dozens of photographs of fair-haired Roma children in my archive.

Creation of Roma stamps

Together with the Human Rights Foundation "Progress", we developed and released the first Roma stamp in the world, timing this event to the International Roma Day. The first stamp on Roma issues, which we launched, depicts a beautiful Roma woman with a red flower in her hair. The artist and I discussed the idea for several weeks, consulted, drew, reworked, argued and came to a common opinion. And here freshly printed stamps came to us from Kiev. It is nice to hold an envelope with this stamp in hands - it is result of our long work. It would seem to be a small event, but it is very important not only for us, but also for the Roma, who were overwhelmed with joy and pride for their people when they saw the official stamp.