JCI Basel represents Switzerland at the 6th Balkan Conference in Chișinău, Moldova

Although we (Dani, Dominik and Oliver) arrived on Thursday early evening, the program of the Conference kicked off on Friday with different options. The three of us decided to visit Mileștii Mici, one of two Guiness World Record Holder wineries of Moldova.

The Mileștii Mici wine cellars boast an impressive collection of over 2 million bottles of wine, including some of the rarest and most sought-after vintages in the world. The cellars themselves are located underground and consist of over 200 kilometres of tunnels, carved out of limestone with special machinery, many of which are named after the types of wines stored within them. After the guided tour we went to the practical part, the tasting of a variety of different wines, including sparkling wine, red wine, and white wine, accompanied by delicious moldovan specialities.

After the wonderful experience, we had the privilege to listen to Moldova’s Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization (Dumitru Alaiba) give an opening speech, followed by numerous other inspirational kick-off speeches for the entire event, such as from Viktor Ómarrson, the 2023 JCI World President.

It was then time to get into our “Swiss-est” uniform to join the Global Village and promote the 2023 JCI World Congress in Zürich. Even though our gifts were really appreciated by far, our costumes were called out as the nicest Swiss surprise – take a look at the pictures and judge for yourself how this is possible 🙂

Out of the ~100 participants at the 6th Balkan Conference, it seems we will have a few dozen joining us in Zürich, which is fantastic!

On Saturday our IPP Oliver Kuehnel joined the JCI senate program visiting Transnistria.

Transnistria is an unrecognised breakaway state that is internationally recognised as a part of Moldova (except for Russia). With enforced control by Russian freedom soldiers, its own Rubel currency and phone network it was a weird former Soviet Union setting. However after passing the border the society was less isolated than expected. Shopping Malls, Parks and rather developed infrastructure surprised in this parallel state following total different political interests.

Although there are challenges between nations it’s important to experience first hand without filters to bridge the gap between humans! As the JCI Creed states “brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations”

In parallel, Dominik and Dani visited the second Guinness World Record Holder winery, Cricova, another impressive network of tunnels, which stretch for over 120 kilometres.

Originally constructed in the 15th century, the Cricova wine cellars were initially used as a hiding place for the locals during times of war, and were later converted into a storage facility for wine. Today, they are considered to be one of the largest and most impressive wine cellars in the world with a staggering 1.3 million bottles of wine, many of which date back to the early 20th century. The most expensive single bottle of wine was a 1902 vintage Jerusalem, worth over 500’000 Euros. And yes, we tasted wines here as well with live music.

Once back from Cricova, Dominik and Dani attended different workshops with the highlight being the “Guided by Purpose” workshop, facilitated by Viktor Ómarrson. We dug into ourselves to discover our purpose statements which in itself were already valuable, but we combined this with actions that we can take regularly to actually materialise this.

Then it was time to get ready for the Gala Night!

The Gala Night hosted numerous very memorable elements, such as a short practical training by Filipe Carrera, JCI European Senate President 2023, traditional Moldovan dances, a tombola for charity and of course our very own presentation about the 2023 World Congress in Zürich.
In good Moldovan/JCI tradition, the night ended with a big party with lots of happy people 🙂

A huge special shoutout goes out to Ioana Bora, the JCI Chișinău Local President and a good friend of JCI Basel, who stayed until the very end and made sure everyone got home safe!!!

On Sunday to close the event, we toured around Chișinău and had a great, quiet day to come away from it all guided by purpose and inspired to make even more of a difference.

Daniel Racz – JCI Basel President 2023

Dominik Gschwend – JCI Basel JAM

Oliver Kühnel – JCI Basel IPP 2023 and JCI Switzerland Zone 2 Vice-President 2023