First International Congress on the Anthropology of Salt (Iași, Romania)

First International Congress on the Anthropology of Salt (http://ethnosalro.uaic.ro/salt2015/) took place in the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (Iași, Romania) on August 20-24, 2015. The initiators of the Congress were well-known Romanian researchers Marius Tiberiu Alexianu and Roxana-Gabriela Curcă. Other organisers: Andrei Asăndulesei, Mihaela Asăndulesei, Robin Brigand, Ștefan Caliniuc, Vasile Cotiugă, Gheorghe Romanescu, Ion Sandu, Felix-Adrian Tencariu, Olivier Weller.

Five continents and 25 countries (Romania, USA, France, Japan, Ukraine, Mexico, Mongolia, India, Italy, Australia, Cameroon, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Spain, Germany, Poland, Austria, Ireland, Moldova, Israel, Côte d’Ivoire, China, Great Britain, Argentina, Canada) were represented in the Congress.

“Programme and Abstracts” (http://ethnosalro.uaic.ro/salt2015/SALT2015.pdf), edited by Ștefan Caliniuc, Mihaela Asăndulesei, Roxana-Gabriela Curcă and Marius-Tiberiu Alexianu, was published before the beginning of the Congress. There were five thematic panels: "Anthropology and Archaeology", "History", "Halotherapy", "Heritage", "Literary and Linguistic Approaches". The YouTube livestreams of the Congress are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U784qRh5U08, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hM-HkZad2Y

Participants of the Congress visited the salt mine in the Romanian town Târgu Ocna.

The only representatives of Ukraine on the Congress were employees of the Research Institute of Urban History Victoria Konstantinova and Igor Lyman. The theme of their research, presented at the Congress, is "Ukrainian Traditional Salt Traders ("Chumaks") in the North of the Sea of Azov (case study of Berdyansk district)".