One of Ungheni’s best-known summer festivals took place this year in the heart of the city. On Sunday, 5 July, «Sânziene Unghenene» reached its seventh edition — this time not on the island of Delia Lake, where it was held in 2025, but in the Scuarul Înfrățirii square and Piața Independenței, in the centre of the municipality. “A celebration of folk costume and traditions in Ungheni, in the heart of the city,” the Municipality announced on its page shortly after the festivities began, in a post accompanied by photos from the site.
The celebration, organised by the Palace of Culture with the support of Ungheni Municipality, kept the recipe that made it a fixture of the Ungheni summer calendar: a procession, the round dance, folk costume and craft workshops. This year’s novelty lies not only in the venue moved out of necessity, but also in the guests of honour brought from across the Prut, who turned the local festival into a cross-border folk gathering.
The celebration in the city centre
According to the official programme, the day began around 15.30 with the participants’ procession, heading towards Piața Independenței. At 16.00 the Sânziene Round Dance began, and from 16.15 the artistic programme and the workshops moved to the Scuarul Înfrățirii. Across the stage and the central alleys came embroidered blouses, striped skirts, yellow sânziene wreaths and dance steps — the familiar image of a celebration that honours folk costume in early July.
A folk band on the festival stage at the seventh edition of «Sânziene Unghenene», 5 July 2026. Photo: Ungheni Municipality
The programme featured the ensembles of the Ungheni Palace of Culture — “Răzeșii”, “Vârsta de Aur”, “Unghenenii”, “Hora de la Prut”, “Struguraș” and the Lăutari Group — alongside ensembles from the district’s villages, among them “Datina” from Zagarancea, “Datina” from Petrești, “Flutureanca” from Florițoaia Nouă and “Ilincuțele” from Chirileni. Beyond song and dance, the organisers prepared folk costume and craft workshops and the “Sânziana 2026” contest, the edition’s highlight.
Children in folk costumes, with wreaths and a basket of sânziene, at the celebration in central Ungheni. Photo: Ungheni Municipality
Guests from Cluj and from across the Prut
What set this edition apart was the presence of guests from Romania. The headliner was Crina Prața, a folk singer from Turda, Cluj county. The Palace of Culture director, Silvia Zagoreanu, announced the guests’ arrival the day before:
We warmly welcomed the guests from Cluj. Crina Prața will perform tomorrow at the «Sânziene Unghenene» Festival. We look forward to seeing you at the celebration! Silvia Zagoreanu, director of the Ungheni Palace of Culture
Alongside the singer from Turda, the edition’s programme also announced other guests from across the Prut, among them Constantin Bahrin, from Iași, and Vasile-Dumitru Ostafi, from Botoșani. The Cluj thread carries a particular resonance for Ungheni: the city is twinned with Cluj-Napoca, and the Central Park — known to locals as “Little Cluj” — was refurbished with the support of the Transylvanian municipality. Beyond that link, the festival remained an occasion to bring the folklore of both banks of the Prut onto the same stage.
Performers in folk costume at «Sânziene Unghenene» 2026, in central Ungheni. Photo: Ungheni Municipality
Why it moved downtown
This year’s venue is the visible mark of a hard spring. The 2025 edition was held on the island of Delia Lake, but, as Triunghi.md reported on 21 June, the festival could no longer return there. In late May, Delia Lake overflowed, and the leisure area the municipality is developing on its shore was left with unfinished works, without the bridge to the island. The organisers cited the aftermath of the May floods when they announced the move to the Scuarul Înfrățirii.
The new venue is a public space in the city centre, laid out in 2010 over about 6,000 square metres, next to the Ungheni courthouse — a place where the municipality regularly holds concerts and seasonal celebrations. Closer to people, in the middle of the city, even if without the water and greenery of the island, the Scuarul Înfrățirii took on the celebration for a year — one that could return to the island of Delia Lake once the city finishes developing the area. For the people of Ungheni, this year’s «Sânziene» remained, beyond the round dance and the wreaths, a concrete sign that the city’s cultural life found somewhere to carry on even after the floods.
Update — two pupils win a prize for the altiță shirt
A few days after the festival, the Palace of Culture announced a result that had not been shared in the moment: in the contest dedicated to the altiță shirt — a contest separate from the „Sânziana 2026” one — two of the youngest participants were awarded second prize. Sofia Coliba and Valeria Barbaroș, sixth-graders at the „Mihai Eminescu” Theoretical Lyceum in Ungheni, have for a year attended the „Șezătoare Ungheni” group at the Palace of Culture, led by Ana Coliba.
According to the organisers, the two have already finished the altițe and the gathering of the traditional shirt and are now working on the „rivers” along the sleeves — the steps of an embroidery that takes months of patience. At a festival that celebrates folk costume, their prize says something simple: the craft of the altiță shirt is finding successors in Ungheni’s youngest generation too.
The details of the seventh edition come from the official post by Ungheni Municipality of 5 July and from the festival poster published by the Palace of Culture. The programme (procession, Sânziene Round Dance, workshops, the “Sânziana” contest) and the list of ensembles and guests represent the line-up announced by the organisers; the presence of singer Crina Prața is confirmed by the Palace of Culture director, Silvia Zagoreanu. The festival’s relocation and its cause — the aftermath of the May floods on the island of Delia Lake — were documented earlier by Triunghi.md. The number of participants and the winner of the “Sânziana 2026” contest had not been officially announced at the time of publication. The photographs belong to Ungheni Municipality. Update, 8 July 2026: we have added the result of the contest dedicated to the altiță shirt — a separate contest within the edition — announced later by the Palace of Culture; the winner of the “Sânziana 2026” contest remains officially unannounced.