Mediterranean Vlora 2006 festival held in the port city

VLORA, Aug. 5 – The four-day Mediterranean Folk Festival Vlora 2006 ended last Friday after many groups from Israel, Spain, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Montenegro and Albania presented their songs. The concerts were held in three different places in the port city and concluded into a joint one at the Sports Palace. The ceremony of awards was held at the Naval Academy. No prizes were planned at the festival that served more as a presentation of the folk values from different countries. “The goal of this festival was the promotion of the tourist resources in Vlora, of its cultural and folk values, and also of the participating groups,” said festival head Istref Dobi. Holding it in different open areas attracted many spectators. There were also held expositions of photos, parades of folk costumes. President Alfred Moisiu hailed the festivities at the end. The festival was funded from Vlora municipality, the Tourism Ministry, People’s Bank, American Bank of Albania and Hotel Palasa. During the previous five years there have been limited numbers of groups from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Spain.
The fifth edition of the Summer University Democracy and Participation will be held this year Aug. 23-Sept. 2 in Vlora. That is part of the project named Toward strengthening new leadership as a form of direct quality of governing tomorrow funded from the Central Europe Initiative and the Council of Europe. There will be lectures on politics, democracy, society, and public life from lecturers from Albania, Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia.