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Tinners Works At Surviving Their Occupation 06/12/2011

Tin master Yaşar Tokgöz living in Yalova struggle to make his ancestral occupation tin-smithing survive. Yaşar Tokgöz, who underlines that they had a great difficulty to deliver the orders when he went to work with his father in the past, said that they hardly can make their living today. The tin master Yaşar Tokgöz has nevertheless determined to continue subsisting on his traditional profession.

Yaşar Tokgöz tries to practise his profession, which he learned from his his father when he was 12 years old, going around street by street in the Taraklı district of Yalova. Tokgöz who with his wife goes to clients that know him, believes that tin-smithing will be a popular job again in the future.

Tin-smithing, which has been one of the most known tradional occupations of the Gypsy peoples for thousands of years, have almost disappeared today. Most of the tinner Gypsies living in Turkey have migrated from the Balkans. Tinner Gypsies who speak the Kalaycı (tinner) dialect of Romanes started to subsist on various low-income-jobs like paper-scrap collecting. The tinner Gypsies living in big cities are particularly often victims of extreme poverty, due to the disappearing of their traditional occupation and prejudices targeting Gypsies.

Source: AA

Photos: Deniz Ersoy