Botoșani “The City of Princesses”
Botosani, located in north east Romania, is a living cultural heritage. The city is the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians such as Mihai Eminescu, a Romanian poet, and Nicolae Iorga, one of Romania’s most important historians.
Up until the 19th century Botosani had one of the biggest Jewish populations in Eastern Europe. Botosani is a typical city in rural Romania. It houses several historic churches, like the Uspenia Church and the Sfantu Nicolae Church. The County Museum showcases important elements of the rural cultures, like traditional crafts and costumes. The Vasilache Puppet Theatre is nationally recognized. They also host the bi-annualy International Gala of Puppet Theatre. The Stefan Luchian Art Galleries offer a tribute to the rich artistic heritage of Botosani. Botosani’ Old Centre is the oldest part of the city, and offers a beautiful setting with historic buildings in different architectural styles. Botosani is home to Romania’s best equipped aquapark. The Cornisa Aqua Park was inaugurated in 2019. The site features multiple facilities such as an indoor and outdoor swimming pool, an ice ring, tennis courts, a football field, an amphitheater, bicycle tracks, artificial river for rafting, and much more. The Cornisa Aqua Park attracts visitors not only from Romania, but from neighboring countries as well. This puts Botosani on the map, and helps boost the local economy.
Economy
In the last decade Botosani suffered a decrease in habitants as the younger generation migrated to the bigger cities. Despite this the city has a good working economy, mainly based on trade and professional and administrative services.
Interests and Future Goals
In order to develop the city further Botosani has made clear goals and identified challenges that need to be tackled. The city wants to modernize their public transport. In an interview the mayor of Botosani, Catalin Mugurel Flutur, said that the city was planning to replace its entire public transport fleet with electrical vehicles. Since the city has received more visitors due to the recent opening of the Cornişsa Aqua Park, they want to optimize the utilization of the historic centre. One of the projects that are in progress is the mapping of the cities catacombs and turning it into a tourist attraction. The city is also working on the creation of a virtual tour of the city. Botosani is part of two European networks, Sinfonia and Urbact. Botosani has already started their digital journey in terms of e-government. Citizens of Botosani will be able to pay their taxes online by 2021. The city of Botosani highly values the input of its habitants, therefore they have created the Botosani City Report app where citizens can submit online petitions or signal problems. Since the launch of the application in 2015 the app has registered and processed 1400 petitions.
