An Italian knows much more about Moldova than some of its citizens

One of the most informed foreign citizens about the history, culture, politics, economy and social life of the Republic of Moldova is the Italian Raffaelle Cioffi, cameraman at a TV channel from Napoli, Italy. Raffaelle Cioffi demonstrated this fact by becoming the winner of the “Know Moldova” contest organized by Radio Moldova International on the occasion of the 15 years of independence. Raffaelle Cioffi has been awarded a 3 day visit to Chisinau to the National Day of Wine. He told Info-Prim Neo that he took part in the contest as he was tried to find out more about one of the countries with Latin roots, which is not so well-known in the world. With this goal in mind, he read everything he found on the internet about Republic of Moldova, the site www.azi.md being the most visited one. The information acquired from all fields helped him answer the questions of the 14 stages of the contest and improved his knowledge about Moldova. Raffaelle Cioffi says that after he studied so much about this Latin country, he feels at home here. The Italian guest mentioned that people are handsome in Chisinau, especially the girls; the Chisinau downtown is well groomed, while the adjacent streets disappointed him; that the Wine Festival is welcomed, but not in the city center; that he will come to Moldova every time he will be able to. For now he wants to visit Orheiul Vechi and Curchi monastery. For the vast knowledge about Moldova demonstrated in the contest, Raffaelle Cioffi has been awarded a Diploma of the „Teleradio-Moldova” Company. At the beginning of 1995, Radio Moldova International organized for the first time the contest entitled „Moldova: history and modern day”. The contest had 10 stages, and the questions were from history, geography, literature, culture, religion, sport etc. The winner of that edition was the French Rene Devanne from Paris, aged 56, accountant without a job at that moment. Devanne won with a serious lead and demonstrated good knowledge of Moldova. At the age of 16, after he found out that his grandfather is a descendent from Romania, he decided to study Romanian language at the Oriental languages school from Paris. After 8 days spent in Moldova, Rene Devanne wrote: „It has already been a week after I returned to my home country, after I have visited with great joy and satisfaction the eastern part of Dacia, the homeland of free Dacs”.