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16:20 Jan 6, 2012
Russian to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters
Russian term or phrase:цыганская магала
Something like a tabor?
1940's Bessarabia, near Soroca
Но вот лемеха – в мешке, мешок – на спине, и я шагаю босиком по стерне, прямиком в город. Я знаю хорошего мастера, виртуоза по части лемехов: цыгана Александра с цыганской магалы – предместья Сорок
in many languages. I'm attaching the link in Bulgarian that you'll easily read. Inside the Wikipedia the transition to the English variant brings us to "hamlet", which will suit you fine. "Mahala" is indeed a small settlement of people, united by the same nationality or some other feature. It may be separate from a town or be a part of it, as a neighborhood.
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Answers
6 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
Gipsy mahala
Explanation: ..,,
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 7 Min. (2012-01-06 16:27:43 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
erika rubinstein Local time: 13:57 Works in field Native speaker of: Russian PRO pts in category: 16
Grading comment
Thanks - I should have thought to switch the 'g' for 'h' when I searched!
Reference comments
17 hrs
Reference: mahala (neighbourhood)
Reference information: Mahala is a Balkan word for "neighbourhood" or "quarter", a section of a rural or urban settlement, dating to the times of the Ottoman Empire. It was brought to the area through Ottoman Turkish mahalle, but it originates in Arabic mähallä, from the root meaning "to settle", "to occupy". It is rendered as follows in the languages of the region: Bulgarian: махала, mahala; Bosnian and Serbian: махала/mahala or маала/maala; Romanian: mahala; Albanian: mahallë; Greek: μαχαλάς, machalas; Macedonian: маало, maalo or маала, maala; Romani: mahala; Aromanian: mãhãlã. A mahala was a relatively independent quarter of a larger village or a town, with its own school, religious building or buildings, mayor's representative, etc.[1] Mahalas are often named after the first settler or, when ethnically separate, according to the dominant ethnicity.
In Bulgaria, mahalas were administratively considered a separate type of settlement on some occasions; today, settlements are only divided into towns or villages, and the official division of towns is into quarters. In rural mountainous areas, villages were often scattered and consisted of relatively separate mahalas with badly developed infrastructure.
In Romanian, the word mahala has come to have the strictly negative or pejorative connotations of a slum or ghetto[2] that are not present or at least not as strongly implied in other languages
украинскому слову «магала» - «часть предместья». Предместьем раньше называли слободу, слободку, посад или пригород у самого города. Большей частью оно заселялось крестьянами, мещанами, отставными солдатами или казаками
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +2
