Artists say Moldova witnesses a shortage of cultural managers

Moldova now witnesses a shortage of cultural administration of all levels and the Culture Ministry does not have resources to absorb the ideas that come from outside. This is the conclusion of the participants in the five roundtable meetings held as part of the pilot project “Visions on Cultural Policy for Moldova: From Changes to Viability” implemented by Soros Foundation-Moldova in cooperation with the European Cultural Foundation based in Amsterdam, Info-Prim Neo reports. The decentralisation problem became acute, dictated by the fact that the cultural product is not promoted in the regions. The meeting participants identified serious problems such as: destroyed bookshops, ruined houses of culture and clubs, libraries that do not wok because the librarians lack training and as a result there are no orders for appropriate books, dozens of villages are neglected, deprived of any cultural possibilities, hundreds of schools are confronted with an acute shortage of textbooks and teachers, many heads of houses of culture have a poor level of education. The participants ascertained that there is no market of functional art in Moldova, there is no equilibrated interaction between the regions and the Centre, there is no reciprocal exchange of cultural products and of general information. At national level, there is no system for informing the public and the artistic community about the events in the rural zones, and for promoting the cultural product in the regions. At the same time, there is no entity that would assess the system/structure, the projects in the area of culture that would generate solutions for development. Except the reconstruction of the cultural patrimony, which must become a prime objective of the state, the majority of the proposals concerned one of the principal components of the decentralisation as notion of cultural policy – shifting of responsibilities from the local cultural functionaries onto cultural subjects, local and from the centre, who know the internal situation and have an interest, solutions and ideas for changing the effects. The roundtable meeting participants consider that in the conditions of absolute impoverishment of the Moldovan society, the population’s access to the products of the cultural industries can be ensured first of all through the budgetary and fiscal policy of the state, as main beneficiary of the cultural product. During the discussions, many participants said that the responsibilities should be shifted onto the district culture sections, which would purchase books for the district and village libraries, arguing that the most competent personnel in the area work at the respective level. The interests could be coordinated by commissions under the district sections that would work out together the polices for purchasing books. Another problem is the placement of orders at national level by the State. Currently, the state only deals with the printing of textbooks for the primary and secondary schools, thing done with many deficiencies that create technical problems to the publishing houses. It is inadmissible that the state bodies do not take care of the printing of textbooks and literature designed for the high schools, universities. The artists consider that the state could contribute by reducing the taxation rate when producing cultural objects and services, which will lead to the fall in the selling price and make these products more accessible.