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A panorama of the town of Ungheni in the warm light of a summer evening, with buildings, greenery and the Prut river in the distance, in a festive atmosphere.

LOCAL

564 years since the first record: Ungheni celebrated its Municipality Days and twinned with Tulcea and Izmit

Ungheni's Municipality Days took place from 20 to 31 August. The celebration opened on 20 August for a precise reason: on that day, in 1462, the settlement is mentioned for the first time in a document — 564 years ago. The programme included the launch of a local-history yearbook, a folklore festival and concerts by performers with Ungheni roots, and on 27 August two new twinning agreements were signed, with the municipality of Tulcea in Romania and the city of Izmit in Turkey.

Ion Calmis·24 July 2026· Explainer

A field of stubble and dry, yellowish grass under a scorching summer sky, the air shimmering with heat on the horizon.

LOCAL

Yellow fire code, ten days nationwide: what the law bans and what burning stubble costs

The Authority for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring has extended its warning of exceptional danger of vegetation fires until 31 July, for most of the country — including the Ungheni district, in the middle of its harvest campaign. The law bans burning stubble and plant residue, and the fine reaches 15,000 lei for an individual and 40,000 for a company. Last year, fires lit by people were the main cause of blazes in the fields.

Ion Calmis·24 July 2026· Explainer

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A freshly modernised village road, with new asphalt and markings, lined with houses and trees, under the summer sky.

LOCAL

Burebista Street in Sculeni enters construction: how a half-billion state programme reaches the village

The Sculeni commune hall announced on 23 July the start of works to modernise Burebista Street, through a government programme for repairing local roads, “Europe is Near”. The project, approved by the council in May 2025 after consultations with residents, was put out to a tender worth over 4 million lei, to which five firms applied. After a challenge upheld in full by the disputes authority and a re-evaluation of the offers, the contract was awarded to Vicoliv Grup, which had submitted the lowest price. This is a different Burebista Street from the one refurbished in Ungheni.

Ion Calmis·24 July 2026· Explainer

A yellow grader levels a dirt-and-gravel street in a neighbourhood of houses in the town of Cornești; flowering shrubs and a fence line the edge.

LOCAL

Cornești lays 960 metres of gravel streets in the „white variant”: what it means and why it isn't asphalt

The Cornești Town Hall announced on 23 July that it had finished „white-variant” repairs on three streets — 2 Decembrie, Stejarului lane and Stejarului street — some 960 metres in all. The „white variant” means compacted gravel, not asphalt: a cheaper, faster solution, but a temporary one — so temporary that, in its own procurement, the town hall cut the works' warranty from 36 to 12 months. The money comes from state transfers for local roads, and the tender, estimated at about 749,000 lei, does not yet have a winner recorded in the public data.

Ion Calmis·24 July 2026· Explainer

A group of people of all ages, adults and children, pedalling together along a tree-lined street in a small town, at a community bike ride.

LOCAL

Ungheni's municipal enterprises take to their bikes — in a town with 311 cars per thousand residents

On Friday, 24 July 2026, from 16.00, the weekly „VeloVineri” campaign run by Ungheni City Hall puts the municipal enterprises in the spotlight, starting from the front of City Hall. Beyond the ride, the underlying stake is real: a town with 311 cars per thousand residents — about 40% above the district average — and with narrow lanes, which has set itself the goal that, by 2030, one in ten trips be made by bike. The figures show major benefits for health and for the wallet; research also shows that a town truly starts pedalling above all when it gets safe lanes, not just campaigns.

Ion Calmis·24 July 2026· Explainer

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Illustration: a football referee raises a red card on a deserted rural pitch at dusk, with goalposts and hills in the background.

LOCAL

Bumbăta plays the «MAGIRUS» semifinal return leg without a player and without its club representative — 1,400 lei fine for threats against referees

The Competitions Commission of the Ungheni Territorial Football Association sanctioned FC Haiduc Bumbăta after the semifinal first leg against Mănoilești: player Nicolae Pușculița and representative Ion Matrosu are each suspended for three matches, and the club pays 1,400 lei — for offensive conduct and threats against the referees. The decision lands on a team that already has a 0–2 to overturn in the return leg, and it stirred, in the comments, a debate about the consistency of the penalties. The edition's bulletins so far show how sanctions are decided in district football — and how much the documented fines add up to.

Ion Calmis·23 July 2026· Analysis

A yellow roller compactor smooths a fresh layer of black asphalt on a street in a residential neighbourhood of Ungheni, bordered by a fence and a rose bed.

LOCAL

Ungheni paves Mihai Viteazul street “from the local budget” — it's on the list for the 10-million loan

On 23 July, Ungheni City Hall announced the repair of Mihai Viteazul street — 500 metres in the Berești-Vasilica neighbourhood — carried out “from the local budget” by the municipal company Servicii Comunale Ungheni. Public records show the street is one of 14 objects on a list the Municipal Council approved in May to be modernised with a 10-million-lei loan raised through municipal bonds; the decision publishes only the overall ceiling and how many metres are to be paved, not the cost of each street. The work is done in-house, without a separate works tender — a lawful model, but one in which the cost of the repair remains, so far, unpublished.

Ion Calmis·23 July 2026· Analysis

Illustration: a wide lowland river with calm water in soft summer afternoon light; dry grass and willows on the bank reflected in the water, with gentle hills in the distance. No people are shown.

LOCAL

The 9-year-old boy who went missing in the Prut at Ungheni has been found dead

The search at Ungheni has ended in tragedy. On Thursday morning, 23 July, at 09.47, divers of the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations found the body of the 9-year-old boy swept away on Tuesday by the currents of the Prut while bathing with other children. The body was found 3–4 kilometres downstream from where he entered the water; the exact cause of death is to be established by law enforcement. The tragedy comes a month after the district's Emergency Situations Commission ordered patrols in the bathing areas along the Prut.

Ion Calmis·23 July 2026· News

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A museum room with a reconstructed traditional house interior: on the left, an old wooden window with flaking paint set on a plinth; in the centre, a man in a white shirt points towards the exhibits; in the background, a wooden weaving loom, an embroidered shirt, an old rug on the parquet floor and a carved crucifix on the wall.

LOCAL

Ungheni has 18 residential buildings left from before 1919. From a house demolished in Dănuțeni, the museum saved the carved window

A museum curator happened to walk past a house being demolished in the Dănuțeni district and called his colleagues to pull out of the rubble whatever could still be saved: a solid wood window carved on three registers, a gable with a solar rosette. The pieces are now on display at the Museum of History and Ethnography. The house was not a listed monument — nor could it have been: in the state register, the Ungheni district's list occupies positions 1573 to 1720, and not one dwelling house appears in it. The 2024 census shows how much is left of the town's old layer: 18 residential buildings erected before 1919, out of nearly 5,000.

Ion Calmis·22 July 2026· News