The linguistic issue is politically invented and is usually brought up by politicians before elections. This is stated by the head of the Association for Social Interaction and Progress from Balti, Veaceslav Burdeniuc, in an interview for IPN. According to him, currently, the youth from the northern capital speak more Romanian, and the number of people who communicate in two languages, Romanian and Russian, is decreasing every year.

Veaceslav Burdeniuc believes that people who have been living in Moldova for several decades have basic knowledge of the Romanian language and says he has not noticed such a pronounced misunderstanding in this regard. In his opinion, all people are rational and can always find common ground, because language cannot be considered an obstacle.

“Unfortunately, those who believe in these narratives about language-based discrimination suffer. I have lived in Balti all my life and I have never met anyone who told me to speak only Russian or only Romanian,” concludes Veaceslav Burdeniuc.

The head of the Association for Social Interaction and Progress asserts that the city of Balti can be outrightly considered multilingual, where the rights of Russian and Ukrainian speakers are not infringed.

This material was produced with the financial support of the European Union. The content thereof is the sole responsibility of the “Social Cohesion through Dialogue” project, funded by the European Union. The opinions expressed in the material belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the European Union.