To introduce the new Reflecting Zemstvei podcast produced by local creatives in Chișinău, Moldova, Cathy Byrd and Olga Raileanu take listeners inside an intensive workshop experience that spanned three days in March 2025. In this episode, you’ll meet the young Moldovans who learned to master recording equipment, script stories, and collect sounds and voices to shape stories from their hometown’s independent art scene. Our story from Eastern Europe takes Fresh Art International's Student Edition outside the English speaking world.

Since 2013, artists and independent initiatives have rented spaces in a center-city building complex known as “Zemstvei,” a state-owned architectural monument that dates from the mid-19th century. They call their improvisational community “Casa Zemstvei.” Creators and curators, animators and activists, visitors and regulars embrace the crumbling architecture, arctic cold, echoey acoustics, and primitive grandeur of this historic space.

Recorded on location, episodes in this limited edition audio program are inspired by the surrounding sonic landscape and the creative characters that energize Chișinău’s “House of Wonders.”

Note: The original version of this episode premiered on YouTube as #1/ Reflectând Zemstvei / How We Made the Podcast.

Production: Cathy Byrd, with Olga Raileanu | Sound Design: Marian Lupu, Olga Raileanu, and Anamnesis Audio

Voices:

Daniel Boldurat - student and volunteer at Oberliht Association, Franz Cocarcea - producer of the video podcast Omul face locul, Bogdan Glavan - high school student, with experience in sound design, Alex Hanganu - student, activist and cultural manager, Olga Raileanu - graphic designer with journalism experience, Marina Scalețchi - communicator, Vladimir Us - curator, president of Oberliht Association