Chanov

Chanov is a small settlement site on the edge of Most district and one of the Roma ghettos in Czech Republic. It has arisen in 70´s as an accommodation place for people from the old city of Most, which has been torned down completely due coal mining. Through years a newly built site became a redoubtable place for the Czechs living in there, which have gradually left the place, forsaking the space for Roma ethnic groups, coming in from different parts of former Czechoslovakia. Nowadays ghetto contends with high rate of unemployment, criminality, prostitution and drug addiction and became an „unsolved problem“ for the local government. The way of living of Romas evincs a repeating pattern across all settlement sites inhabited from a bigger part by Roma population. Among these characteristics besides belong so called „see-through block of flats“, primarily abandoned due lack of sanitary facilities caused by tenancy payments defaults or emigration. The houses are being dissasemblaged or demolished by the Chanov inhabitants themselves shortly afterwards and then unintentionally create extraordinary surreal views into the Chanov´s surrounding for the incoming outside observer. Chanov site suffers from deepening isolation which creates strong social tensions and a hopeless prospect for local Roma to step out of the living patterns of their ghettos.