"Choose you, let me give you the. Buy more, I'll give you a discount too," Dan Căldărar (Constantin Sande, his real name), a Caldărar Roma from Buzescu commune, Teleorman county, told us in a joking tone.
The craftsman is 67 years old and continues to work and live from his work. When you enter his house, it's like entering an exhibition. Pots, pans, vases, pots and other copper vessels at every step. Some are new, made by the Roma craftsman himself. Others, he tells us, are heritage.
The most impressive vessels are stills. What is a still? It is a large vessel, made of copper, used for distilling brandy.
After iron processing, copper processing is an important craft in the material culture of the Roma. The craft is also known as coppersmithing or coppersmithing.
"Do you know what this is?" he asks, showing us a larger cauldron. "A cauldron for polenta. It was made on the stove, with wood. This I think is 300 years old. I got this from my grandmother. Dad passed away 30 years ago now and left them to me (n.a – shows us more items). They are from his father", our boilermaker continues his story.
It was the tradition of the calderari to go from village to village and set up their tents where they intended to stay longer. "I never went with the tent. My grandfather, my father's father, told me that they had no houses. They moved from village to village, with the tent. My mother told me they had brothels instead of houses. They made boilers and went to sell them", told us the boiler maker from Teleorman.
