Razvan’s new life with his Roma biological family

Here is Razvan, stepping out of his old Renault 25, outside Ploiesti’s train station, an industrial city north-west of Bucharest, Romania. Last time I saw Razvan, in August, he was about to meet his biological sisters in the South of France. Now he lives with his biological family in a Roma village fifteen miles away.

('Mum on the right, grand-ma behind and one of his sisters in the back’)

"Meeting my sisters was very emotional and disturbing. I had understood they had their own flat in Nice and a good life. The truth was they rented a tiny place and were scavengers", Razvan says as we are having a coffee at the station. After ten days living and sleeping in the Renault 25, he convinced the girls to go back to Romania. "We crossed Italy, Austria, Hungary.  Just after we passed the Romanian border, you'd never guess what happened: the right side of the car was struck by lightning! The girls couldn't stop screaming but the Renault 25 was still running and got us home!”

Razvan hadn't been to Romania since he was adopted by a French couple in 1991. He only found out last summer - thanks to the French charity AFOR (Association Française Orphelins de Roumanie) that helps adoptees to find their biological families - he was the son of a Gypsy mother and a shepherd and had three sisters. Once he got their names he found them on Facebook. "It was crazy. We chatted all night on Skype. We didn't want to hang up. We had so much to talk about. They just knew I had been adopted but nothing more".

(Razvan at 16)

It was in 1990, just after the fall of Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Contraception and abortion were illegal. "If you can't raise your children, the State will do it for you", was one of Ceausescu’s slogans. Institutions for children were built all over the country. Hundreds of thousands of children were placed in these orphanages. Orphanages the West discovered, horrified, in 1990, through haunting images of scrawny bodies strapped to beds.

International adoption was then relatively easy. Razvan’s adoptive parents were directed to the orphanage he was placed in and liked him immediately. He was only a few months old. They started the adoption process, went back to France. François, Razvan’s dad, flew back to Romania a few months later to sign the adoption papers but had a very bad surprise. “My mother wouldn’t sign the adoption paper unless she gets 50,000 Francs (about £5000), a huge amount at the time! Basically, she sold me.” With tears in his eyes, he goes on: “My dad came back devastated, he didn’t have that amount. When he was seriously thinking about giving up, he had a wonderful surprise: his friends had clubbed together to find the money!”. François went back to Romania and this time, came back with Razvan.

(Razvan's nieces and nephew playing in the family house's corridor)

Time is flying. We (Marion, president of AFOR and I) are expected for lunch at Razvan’s. His village is very poor and the family’s house has only one decent bedroom, which is now his’. That’s where the table is dressed. We are obviously the curiosities, surrounded by members of the family who look at us as if they haven’t seen any foreigner! Razvan has obviously become the Gypsy king of the family. He is the only man. His biological dad is a shepherd. “He is poor, he lives in a hut, in the middle of nowhere. I met him on my way here. He cried and cried when he saw me… I stayed with him a few days then came here”… to meet the mother “who sold him”. “Why?” was the first question he asked her on Skype. “We were very poor, she said, I was unwell and my own mother saw an opportunity to make money. She forced me to do it”, she told him. Razvan’s grand-mother is sitting with us, so is Razvan’s mum. Life seems to have gone on. It was 25 years ago.

They want to know more about Razvan. They are surprised he has been here three months. Life must be better in France! But he didn’t have such a happy life there. “My adoptive parents told me very young that I was adopted and that my biological parents were dead. I grew up with this idea. I was very close to my dad. He is a Gypsy himself but settled in a house. He has Alzheimer now and can hardly remember who I am". What about his adoptive mother? He hasn't seen her in years and admits he never felt many connections with her, especially since he was sixteen and his dad came back drunk one night. "It was horrible, I never saw my dad in such a violent state...”. Razvan's family knows the story but they are carefully listening. "He told me my parents weren't dead and that they sold me. I was devastated". Things were never the same again after that terrible night. Razvan ran away from home, came back to run away again and decided to start living on the road with Gypsies in France. They were his new family. He travelled with them, worked as a mechanic and started to think about finding his biological family.

(Razvan and his sister Ribenna)

Stuffed with food and drinks, the mood is slowly switching from tears to laughs. Razvan even finds a nickname to his grand-mother. "Look at her sneakers. They come directly from the rubbish in Nice! Granny Sneakers, that's how we’ll call her now!" It's fully dark outside and time for Marion and I to leave. It feels like we’ve spent days at Razvan's. The little house is so loaded with emotions, a past to be sorted out (as well as a present and a future!) that we feel we need to leave them together and have some time for us to digest such a rich and emotional afternoon.  

(‘Razvan at a Romanian adoptees' weekend near Lyon, organised by the charity AFOR (Association Française Orphelins de Roumanie’)

By Elisabeth Blanchet