Armenian Street Festival to take place at Bucharest’s Botanical Garden in August

The Armenian Street Festival returns for a 9th edition between August 1 and 3, 2025, in the “Dimitrie Brândză” Botanical Garden in Bucharest. The festival brings into focus the living heritage of the Armenian community in Romania and the diaspora.

According to the organizers, this year’s edition aims to strengthen the Bucharest–Chișinău–Yerevan cultural axis, articulated through an artistic program featuring major international names from Armenia, the Republic of Moldova, and Romania, as well as exhibitions, workshops, gastronomy, and intergenerational dialogues.

“For three days, the Botanical Garden becomes an open space where Armenian traditions meet the contemporary energies of the city. The festival maintains its polyphonic structure, where concerts blend with craftsmanship, memory with improvisation, and ritual with artistic experiment. The public will hear voices that unite past and present: from legendary brass bands to urban poetry musicians, from songs of longing to rhythms that transcend language barriers,” the press release notes.

Among the performing artists and bands are Moldova’s famous punk folk band Zdob și Zdub and the Osoianu Sisters, but also Romania’s Ciocârlia Fanfare, the more modern Robin and the Backstabbers, and the old-school Corina Sîrghi & Taraf.

The Bambir, from Armenia, will also perform. The band is a national rock legend which started in the 1970s. Their music is a synthesis of progressive rock, Armenian ethno, jazz, and poetry. Founded by Jag Barseghyan, the project was passed to the next generation – his son Narek and his bandmates – becoming one of the most enduring and fascinating intergenerational projects in the post-Soviet space.

They are joined by co-nationals Gata Band, which focuses on ethnic jazz reinterpreted. Founded by musicians trained at the Yerevan Conservatory, Gata Band uses traditional instruments like duduk, kanon, dap, and dhol, contorting them into sophisticated harmonic structures inspired by modal and progressive jazz. They’ve performed in France, Germany, Lebanon, Georgia, and appeared in UNESCO-curated projects.

(Photo source: press release)