AUTHOR
Ion Calmîș

Ion Calmîș

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Founder and editor-in-chief of Triunghi.md. Ion (Nalyk) Calmîș has worked at the intersection of journalism and technology in the Republic of Moldova for over two decades — a road that began in Ungheni, as a reporter at the newspaper Unghiul. He is CTO of Studio Technologies, the company behind the platforms of some of the country's most-read newsrooms (unimedia.info, jurnal.md, jurnaltv.md, tvrmoldova.md), and Head of AI Ecosystem at Esempla Systems (Moldova's GovStack infrastructure); he co-founded the newsroom Replica Media. At Triunghi.md he puts that experience — and artificial intelligence, at scale — in the service of local journalism built on source triangulation (People, Documents, Data) and on impartiality.

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418 ARTICLES
Illustration: a children's reading corner in a library — shelves of colourful books, open books on a low table and an armchair; warm light, no people in the frame.
EDUCATION & HEALTH

How Ungheni’s libraries hold on in a district with ever fewer children

A donation of children's books, made by writer Elena Vizir to a library in Ungheni, looks like a small gesture. Set against the official figures, it touches a nerve: over two decades, the book stock of the district's libraries has thinned by a quarter — and yet people use them more than fifteen years ago. In a district losing its young people, a library full of children is no longer a banality, but news.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· News
Illustration: a local council meeting room with chairs and a U-shaped table, empty; sober light, no people in the frame.
LOCAL

Seven councillors demand a new vote on the Măcărești–Ungheni merger that failed in council

The project under which the commune of Măcărești would merge with the municipality of Ungheni did not gather the required votes in the Communal Council on 16 June — even though, a few days earlier, a citizens' assembly had approved it. At the request of a group of councillors, the mayor convened an extraordinary session for 22 June, with a single item on the agenda. It is the first visible blockage in the cluster of localities the municipality of Ungheni is gathering around itself.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· News
2/3 confirmed · DATA — pending· got a tip? write to us →
A modern, empty classroom with rows of wooden desks, a clean blackboard and a stack of notebooks on the teacher's desk in warm morning light — illustrative image.
EDUCATION & HEALTH

An Ungheni high school went through a national program for principals, against a shortfall of 73 teachers in the district

The management team of the «Mihai Eminescu» high school in Ungheni was among the roughly 13 institutions in the country included in the «Investim în directori» program, whose closing conference took place on June 17. The program, run by the ministry and the National Institute for Education and Leadership, bet on training school leadership — in a system that is losing teaching staff, while in Ungheni 73 positions remain unfilled, three of them precisely at «Eminescu».

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· News
An old wooden freight wagon on rusty tracks at dusk, with a worn suitcase on the empty platform.
NATIONAL

The state compensates assets confiscated by the Soviet regime. In Ungheni, the memory of the deportations counts thousands of names

The Government has allocated over 1.8 million lei to compensate six people whose assets the communist regime confiscated. The sum is small, but it opens a door to a vast and unfinished reckoning: in the Ungheni district alone, the official catalogue of the victims of totalitarianism gathers thousands of names, from more than 60 localities. The law gives victims and heirs the right to compensation — but how many actually claim it?

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· ExplainerWHAT'S AT STAKE
2/3 confirmed · DATA — pending· got a tip? write to us →
A mobile phone, a SIM card and a generic identity document on a dark wooden table, in dramatic light.
NATIONAL

A SIM card only with your ID: what the new anti-fraud measure changes, and why an ageing district like Ungheni is a target

The Government has decided that prepaid SIM cards will be activated only on the basis of an identity document, to cut into the anonymity used by scammers. Telephone and online fraud has exploded — from 40 million lei in 2023 to over 272 million in 2025. For a district like Ungheni, with many elderly people left alone while their relatives are abroad, the measure touches a nerve: here a woman was tricked out of more than 436,000 lei, and the most exposed are precisely those over 66.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· ExplainerWHAT'S AT STAKE
Illustration: the warm, bright interior of a small home — a sofa, a wooden table, a curtained window and plants; a domestic, homely atmosphere, no people in the frame.
PUBLIC SERVICES

A home in Sculeni, part of a reform moving people out of institutions into the community

One of the eight community homes for people with severe intellectual disabilities in Moldova is in Sculeni, Ungheni district. It is part of a cross-border project funded by the European Union, which is modernising 12 social buildings, and in June the homes' staff were trained in ethics, person-centred care and crisis de-escalation. Behind it lies a quiet but profound reform: moving people out of large institutions into small homes in the community. It is advancing slowly — and that is why it is worth watching.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· Explainer
An apple orchard on hills at sunset, with rows of young trees and a cold-storage warehouse in the distance.
NATIONAL

Moldova negotiates 150 million euros for orchards and vineyards. How much can a district like Ungheni get, where plantations have thinned

Parliament has cleared the way for negotiations on a new European loan of 150 million euros, «Livada Moldovei II», for horticulture, viticulture and irrigation. The money is plentiful, but it comes as a loan, not a gift — and the first programme absorbed only three quarters of its funds. For the Ungheni district, where the area of orchards has fallen by a fifth in a decade, the real question is not how much is given nationally, but whether the money reaches here too.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· ExplainerWHAT'S AT STAKE
2/3 confirmed · PEOPLE — pending· got a tip? write to us →
Illustration: a solemn official hall, with an open booklet of a constitution on a polished table and a pen beside it; warm light, no people in the frame.
LOCAL

A woman took the oath of allegiance in Ungheni and became a citizen of Moldova

At the Ungheni District Council, in a solemn setting, with the national anthem, the district president confirmed the taking of the oath of allegiance by a new citizen of the Republic of Moldova — the exact legal moment at which someone becomes a citizen. Triunghi.md does not reveal her identity; but we use the occasion to explain a process that is rarely discussed: how, by which routes and for how many people Moldovan citizenship is acquired today — in a year when the numbers rose sharply.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· Explainer
Illustration: a prevention kit on a table — sealed sterile syringes in medical packaging, condoms, a rapid HIV test and a brochure — next to the bag of a mobile outreach team. No people in the frame.
EDUCATION & HEALTH

Why the state now pays for HIV prevention among key groups in Ungheni

Needle exchange, HIV tests, counselling and tuberculosis screening — services that hundreds of people from key groups receive in Ungheni are now paid for from the prophylaxis fund of the National Health Insurance Company, not by foreign donors. Ungheni is named explicitly in a project won in February by the NGO Union for Equity and Health, part of a national package of 33 million lei for 2026–2028. A quiet but consequential shift: in a concentrated epidemic, prevention where the risk is highest protects everyone's health.

Ion Calmis·17 June 2026· Explainer