Extravagant mansions once owned by wealthy Roma stand in stark contrast to the modest traditional homes of Soroca in northern Moldova. In a district known as “Gypsy Hill”, members of the Roma community built houses resembling Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre or the US Capitol in Washington to flaunt their wealth in one of Europe’s poorest countries. But many of these palatial homes are now abandoned after their owners left the town of some 22,000 people in search of a more prosperous future.