Before World War II, Zanea was a Romanianvillagepopulated by peaceful peasants. They were working in their small farms as well as in a private estate, owned by a Jewish family. Due to antisemitic laws, the estate was confiscated. At the end of the war, it was returned to the original owners, who proceeded to renovate and repair the place. As Romania was taken over by a Soviet-backedcommunist administration, the estate was again confiscated in 1948 by the authorities. The estate was established as "commune property" and broke down. In the early 1950s, 5 Roma families settled in the village. The neighborhood appeared in the decades 1950s–1960s as a result of the forced settlement of Romanomads by the communist authorities. These communities were already hard hit by the Porajmos ; in 1942–1944 they were deported in Transnistria, where many of them died. Additionally to the forced settlement, the savings were confiscated by the authorities. Combined with the fact that the Communist system forbade any private business, thus being impeded to profess the crafts that supported their livelihood, these Roma became poorer during those decades. After the 1989 Revolution that brought democracy in Romania, it became again legal to profess the crafts. The confiscated gold was partly returned and with that capital in the 1990s businesses were started, mostly with metals. During those years, they began to build roomy houses, having a very different architecture from that usually employed in Romania, soon dubbed by the localmass-media as palate țigănești. Their different style is usually presented by this media and most of the non-Romani population as expressinglack of culture, while some architects point out to their spontaneity and freedom of style. Mostly the old-generation non-Roma dislike them, while the younger people and those from outside Romania appreciate their vitality. Acad. Constantin Bǎlǎceanu-Stolnici, a reputed anthropologist from Romania, declared that their different style is explained since in fact they are similar to the architectural style from North India, expressing the survival of the Desi cultural archetypes even after centuries of nomadism.
