Chanov housing estate

The Chanov housing estate is a housing estate on the outskirts of Most in the Ústí nad Labem Region in the Czech Republic. The estate was constructed during the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in the late 1970s as a means of housing much of the Romani population that resided in the old royal city of Most. The city was demolished during the 1970s and 1980s to extract the brown coal deposits that lay underneath. The reconstruction of the city and the necessity to relocate the Romani population gave the Communist authorities an opportunity to attempt "to transform all inhabitants into productive and modern socialist citizens". The Communists believed that moving the Roma into modern housing would end behaviour that the Communists considered "uncivilised", and resolve the so-called "Gypsy problem". The Chanov housing estate has been perceived by many Czechs as among the worst examples of ghettoization of the Czech Romani population and has been described as "the housing estate of horror", "a hygienic timebomb", "a black stain" and the "Czech Bronx".