Bekhir Bekhmanatov is the leader of a group of gypsies introduced in Hollow City.
Hollow City[]
Bekhir discovers Jacob Portman and his friends at the back of one of the Gypsy wagons while they are trying to hitch a ride. He questions them with the silent threat of a knife and does not accept their sob story, and locks them in a large animal cage until it can be ascertained exactly who the peculiars are. When Bronwyn accidentally takes a boy named Galbi hostage, Bekhir threatens to kill the peculiars with his bare hands if they harm the boy. However, his opinion of the group changes after they reveal that they are peculiar, and he protects the children from the wights that arrive looking for them.
He apologizes about the way the children were treated, as he needs to take every precaution to keep his people safe. He gives the children proper hospitality, and tells them that Gypsies and peculiars are allies of a sort. Later, he asks that Jacob, Emma, and Millard come to meet his son, who turns out to have a manifesting peculiarity of invisibility.
The next day, Bekhir wakes the peculiars up at dawn in preparation for taking them the rest of the way to town. He and his son lead the pack of horses, and stops everyone at the town gates. When Radi says that he wants to go with the peculiars, Bekhir is prepared to not stop his son, but Millard ultimately says that Radi belongs with the Gypsies.
On the Gypsies' way back, they ran into the same wights, led by Mr. White, they had protected Jacob and his friends from. The wights shot three of the horses and kidnapped some of the Gypsies, including Bekhir. A few, such as Radi, however, were luckily able to escape. The rest were tortured for information on the whereabouts of the peculiars, and Bekhir gets stabbed in the thigh when he doesn't tell Mr. White where Miss Peregrine is. He abandons all pretence of not knowing the children when he shouts at them to not give the wights any information, earning himself a kick to the stomach.
Hugh, outside, uses the bees in the nearby field to attack the wights, but they slam the window of the shack they are in shut. Bekhir threatens the wights with opening the window unless they put their guns down, but they do not comply. Mr. White orders his men to grab Bekhir, but he punches through the window glass, letting in the bees that kill the wights. He later says that he didn't know for sure that the bees wouldn't attack the Gypsies and the peculiars. He thanks Hugh and draws a shortcut back to the town for the peculiars in the dirt.
Description[]
Appearance[]
Bekhir is a large man wearing a flat cap and has a caterpillar mustache.
Personality[]
He appears to be very rough and hostile at first to the peculiar children, but it is later seen that he needs to act like this to strangers in order to protect his people. Bekhir turns out to be a nice man and is kind to peculiars, as Gypsies and peculiars have an old understanding between them. He even teasingly roughs Enoch's hair while grinning, asking where his peculiar spirit is.
Relationships[]
Radi Bekhmanatov[]
Bekhir loves Radi very much, even if he doesn't say it out loud. Partly the reason he protected Jacob and his friends from the wights was because of Radi, as Bekhir didn't know how to help his peculiar son who was gradually becoming invisible. When Radi wants to go with the other peculiar children, Bekhir states that he doesn't want his son to leave, but is doubtful that Radi can be properly cared for if the Gypsies can't see him. He also wonders if Radi would be better off with his own kind, but Millard dispels this by saying that if Bekhir loves his son, then Radi belongs with the Gypsies.