Helbig's dissertation involved an Everything Is Illuminated-style journey to the Ukraine to study how the Roma culture was coping with both the collapse of the USSR and Soros-funded grants flowing into regional NGOs. Roaming with a guitar from village to village, "I integrated myself with people who were the poorest and had fallen through the cracks," she says. "With festivals happening, there was a revival of the culture, but only [among] a closed circuit of people, which led to corruption and a restructuring of the Gypsy society."