Lister

By Morten Grønborg
Translation by Minna Julie Kolte

“Why do they collect deposit, and what do they do with it?” – a question texted to the editorial office about the Roma of the Festival. The answer is in way simple enough, because the Roma can be found with mountains of beverage containers in the queues for the Festival’s deposit stalls. Containers in – money out. Simple.

“No photos”

To find out whom the Roma are, and where they come from, is on the contrary much more difficult to answer. Orange Press approached a number of Roma in the deposit queue. All replied politely, but firmly, “no thank you” to use the waiting time on a chat with a reporter.

Serbian-Swedish Mustafa enters, however, conversation with us, but “no photos”, he underscores. Mustafa estimates that he guards more than 1,000 cans, collected in half a day by three other Roma. He waits in queue and has guard duty over a lot that is not easily transported around.

From all over Europe

Most of the Roma, we meet, speak German. Mustafa speaks English. He tells us that a common denominator for the ethnical group Roma is the language Romany, which most speak in different dialects. Otherwise they are spread out over most of Europe. Mustafa estimates that on the Festival there are at least a couple of hundred Roma from Germany, Poland and Russia. He lives in Sweden and is at the Festival to make money.

"We stop now"

Mustafa loses his desire to do the interview, when the questions start being about anything else than deposit. Suddenly he says stop, so we end the interview and wish him a good festival.

It never appears why the Roma of the Festival are so withholding about putting focus on their presence. Maybe it comes from an inherited scepticism. Roma are historically a vulnerable minority, who among others were persecuted during World War II on level with Jews.

They are still here. And at Roskilde Festival ’08, they compose a small, but efficient wheel in the enormous machinery that moves beer cans to the festival goers – and back again.