Ukraine

   Estimated Gypsy population: 75,000. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has been an independent state. The first Gypsies arrived in what is now the territory of Ukraine as early as 1427 and a substantial Gypsy population has lived there ever since.

   During World War II, the Ukraine was conquered by the Germans and many Gypsies were killed by the Einsatzgruppen in Duma-Eli, Krasnye Yerchi, Staryi Krum, Ungut, and elsewhere. A delegation of three older Crimean Tatars in the village of Asan-Bey asked the German commander to spare the Gypsies there, but the officer said he would free them only if the Tatars were willing to die in their place. The Gypsies were locked in a storehouse and shot.

   There have been some anti-Gypsy pogroms since the political changes in 1991. An entire Romany family was burned to death after an arson attack on their home in the village of Malaya Kahnivka in central Ukraine. According to a relative who witnessed the attack, one of the three men responsible for setting the house on fire was a police officer. There have been other reports of Roma being harassed by the police.

   The Ukrainian Association of Roma, formed in 2002, is based in Kiev. In June 2003, a conference entitled "Roma Women: Double Discrimination" took place in Kiev, organized by the Chirikli Romany Women's Charity Foundation and the Roma of Ukraine Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.

   In Ukraine, generally three dialects of Romani are spoken: Carpathian, Ukrainian (or Servi), and Haladitko. The poet Kaz-imierenka writes in the Haladitko dialect, as did Djura Makhotin. In addition, in the Crimea the local Gypsies speak their own (Krimitka) dialect-which is close to Balkan Romani-or a dialect known as Ursari (which is not the same as the Ursari of Romania).