Many houses of culture in Moldova have been completely destroyed or closed down

Given the lack of financing, extensive and current repair and heating a large part of the houses of culture in the settlements of Moldova got ruined or were closed down. The participants in the five roundtable meetings held as part of the pilot-project “Visions on Cultural Policy for Moldova: from Changes to Viability” that was launched by Soros Moldova Foundation in cooperation with the Central European Foundation based in Amsterdam, think that the buildings of culture in Moldova fell into ruin after they began to be administered by the local authorities. The patrimony obtained by the mayoralties was rather important because, even after the difficult economic period of the 90s, Moldova entered the new millennium with an imposing number of buildings of culture. In 2002, Moldova had 1,245 houses of culture and clubs, 1,333 libraries, 49 museums. Following the taking over by the local governments and the imminent lack of financial resources in the local budget, a large part of the houses of culture came to be in a deplorable condition. At the same time, the participants say, the houses of culture depended on subjective factors from within the local administration. If the mayor and the local council are receptive to the cultural needs of the community, the houses of culture receive allocations not only for salaries, as in the majority of the houses of culture, but also for certain activities. The local public administration appoints the heads of the houses of culture, often without consulting the district culture divisions, which in turn do not have instruments to influence these decisions. As a result, many heads of houses of culture are not specialists in the area, but are close to the mayors. The case of Ocnita district, whose culture division managed to preserve the prerogative of appointing the house of culture heads when the mayor’s offices took over these duties, is one of the few exceptions that can indicate the direction for modifying the rules. The meeting participants consider that though the authorities have paid greater attention to the problems confronting the houses of culture in the past years, making attempts to restore the houses of culture by launching cultural projects, through the national support to village programme, these actions are temporary and disparate. According to them, Moldova does not have a consistent state policy to solve the problems of the houses of culture, to set the priorities and create a plan of action in the area. Therefore, although the allocations are larger, the situation has not improved but worsened. The number of working houses of culture continued to decrease and was 1,223 in 2005. Another problem is the departure of the specialists that worked in the houses of culture, who had to leave because they were paid only 400 lei a month. At the moment, says the head of the Culture Division in Cimislia, Mihai Grau, there are no managers that are proficient in contemporary management, are able to work out development strategies and look for funds, know the cultural marketing, one of the reasons being the inexistence of centres that would train specialists in the area. Many specialists consider that when the local governments took over the houses of culture, they did not think of their possibilities of maintaining them. The specialists say that to stop the destruction of the houses of culture and revive their activity, these should be administered by the district authorities. The rehabilitation of some houses of culture was possible due to the financial support allocated by the Social Investment Fund of Moldova. In 2006, there were restored and repaired 17 houses and palaces of culture from different districts of the country, especially in big settlements with a large population or where influential economic agents work.