Paints in the white range will become mandatory for the facades of buildings in Chisinau, under a mayoral decision to be signed today, IPN reports.

Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca told today's City Hall meeting the measure, which will become effective once signed, aims to give back Chisinau the image of “a white city with white stone shoulders”, as is proclaimed by the capital's anthem.

“Before the (Second World) War, the buildings in the city were made of white stone and remained uncoated, or if coated, were painted with white slaked lime. Hence the 'white city'. Even with the advent of concrete as a construction material for buildings, people tried to make it in light nuances. But in the last 10 or 15 years there has been this trend to paint buildings in whatever color you fancy, according to the Moldovan taste, in a fashion seen nowhere else in the word”, argued Dorin Chirtoaca.

The mayor said the measure will not apply to the buildings already painted in bright colors, but their administrators will have to comply at the first renovation.

Chirtoaca added that in the future color standards for the center of the city could be more rigorous than for the outskirts, where white derivatives would still be preferred..