On October 24th and 25th 2019, a team of the Remarkable Romania project participated in the International Cultural Heritage Fair in Paris, which took place at the Louvre museum. The delegation of the “Remarkable Romania” team in Paris was composed of: Ștefan Teișanu, Director of Cluj Cultural Centre, Mihai Giurgiu, Project Manager of “Remarkable Romania”, Cristina Bolog, Tourism Expert and member of the board of the programme and Sergiu Pop, representative of the communes included in the programme, a local entrepreneur from Bonțida.
Among the activities carried out during the visit at the International Cultural Heritage Fair, we would like to mention the meetings with members of our partners, Sites et Cités Remarquables de France. On Thursday, the Romanian delegation had a meeting with Jonathan Fedy, the representative of the International Cooperation and Heritage Enhancement Mission, where they discussed specific aspects of the “Remarkable Romania” programme and made a summary of the current year, but they also worked on planning the calendar for 2020 and on pointing out several strategic directions.
On Thursday, the director of the Cluj Cultural Centre, Ștefan Teișanu, also attended the conference “Heritage, attractiveness and international cooperation: what is the contribution of international openness to territory development?”, where he presented the project “Remarkable Romania” and how we cooperate within this project with networks of cities and experts in Romania and France. The conference was also attended by Sébastien Zonghero, representative of the Ministry of Culture, Project Manager of “International Recognition of Heritage Expertise”, Armelle Guyomarc’h, Mission Officer, the Delegation for external actions for local authorities within the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and a representative of the city of Nancy.
On Friday, we had another very important meeting, with Sofie Metadier, the remarkable mayor of the town Beaulieu-lès-Loches (central region of France), a personality who is very involved in local and regional development. We discussed the possibility of a collaboration at the level of rural micro-regions in France and Romania, taking into consideration common objectives: encouraging the use of traditional materials in architecture, artistic projects, eco-tourism, community development, supporting local cooperatives and producers, accessing the products of the rural area in the markets and shops in the cities.
“The visit in Paris was also the opportunity to get in touch with the impressive industry and community of persons dedicated to protecting the cultural heritage in France and Europe, respectively. We exchanged contacts with representatives of institutions and NGOs in this field, both new and old entities which come up with creative solutions for cultural heritage. Visiting the international fair showed us how far behind we lag in organizing and developing this field but it also encourages us to create programmes and solutions to quickly catch up”, Mihai Giurgiu, Project Manager of Remarkable Romania said.
