Central park to house Ethnic Festival

About 55 cultural ethnic organizations and 18 municipal organizations representing over 40 ethnic groups living in Moldova will participate in the ninth Ethnic Festival “Unity through Diversity”, which will take place in the Stephan the Great Public Garden in Chisinau on September 20, Info-Prim Neo reports. “Moldova is a polyethnic country and this festival shows how the ethnic groups living in Moldova can contribute to building the Moldovan state and strengthens the interethenic relations in Moldova,” Olga Goncerova, the director general of the Interethnic Relations Bureau, said at a news conference on September 17. The festival is organized by the Interethnic Relations Bureau in concert with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Mayors' Council, the mayors' offices of Chisinau municipality, the district councils, the Executive Committee of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, cultural ethnic organizations. Ethnic festivals will be held in all the districts of the country, except four, where there are few people of other ethnicity than Moldovan. The festival will start with laying of flowers to the monument to Stephan the Great and will continue with the official opening on the Classic Writers' Alley in the central park. The program of the event includes a concert, exhibitions of national dishes, books, decorative works. According to the census taken in 2004, there are about 120 ethnic communities in Moldova. The Moldovans make up 75.8%, the Ukrainians - 8.4%, the Russians – 5.9%, the Gagauzians – 4.4%, the Romanians – 2.2 %, the Bulgarians 1.9%, the Romanies – 0.4%, the Jews – 0.1%, etc.