Moldova has joined the International Folklore Festival “Bucovina Meetings” that is at its 25th edition. The event is staged in a number of countries and brings together amateur artists whose origin is in Romania’s Bucovina. Yesterday, July 4, 18 folkloric ensembles from four countries gave a concert in the central park of Chisinau. Today and tomorrow the event will continue in Straseni and Ialoveni.
The festival started with a show of national costumes. Afterward, each of the ensembles performed folk dances and songs on the stage. Director of the European Cultural Center “Dacia” Viorica Oprea has told IPN that ten ensembles from Moldova, five from Romania and by one ensemble from Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic took part in the festival in Chisinau. “There will be almost 5,000 participants in this year’s festival,” she stated.
Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca welcomed the holding of the festival in Chisinau, saying the keeping of traditions forms part of the cultural identity. “A people without culture has no memory and cannot make history,” he noted.
The concert in Chisinau involved the famous Czech ensemble “Folklorni studio Buchlovice”. Czech Ambassador to Moldova Jaromir Kvapil said that such events are important for promoting the culture and maintaining relations of friendship between countries, especially given that Moldova has a European course.
This year the International Folklore Festival “Bucovina Meetings” has the following itinerary: Poland (Piła and Jastrowie, June 18 – 22), Moldova (Chisinau, Straseni and Ialoveni, July 4 – 6), Ukraine (Cernauti, July 12 – 13), Romania (Campulung Moldovenesc, July 18 – 20), Hungary (Bonyhád, August 1 – 3), and Slovakia (Turčianske Teplice, August 22 – 24).
