The European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) to Moldova and Ukraine today opened its photography exhibition, ‘Dogs: Service and Friendship’, at the Academy for Economic Studies (ASEM) in Chisinau today.

The exhibition will show off over 80 of the best entries for the ‘Dogs on the Border’ photography competition, for which EUBAM received over 300 submissions. EUBAM launched the exhibition in Odessa at the end of November to mark its 7th anniversary, and after spending a couple of weeks at the Odessa Literature Museum the exhibits are now crossing the border.

ASEM is one of EUBAM’s two partners universities in the Republic of Moldova (the other being ULIM), with the university’s students taking part in several EUBAM initiatives since the Mission decided to step up its interaction with the younger generations in both Moldova and Ukraine.

“Dogs are the best friends of those crossing the border,” said Wicher Slagter, Head of the Political and Economic Section of the Delegation of the European Union to Moldova, at today’s opening ceremony. “And they are the worst enemies of criminals.”

The photography competition was divided into two broad categories: service – to show the key role played by dogs in the work of border guards and customs officers – and friendship, illustrating the central part dogs play in people’s everyday lives. As well as awarding winners in both those categories, the competition also had an overall ‘grandprix’ winner – that was Mr Aleksandr Sinelnikov, for his photograph ‘Fidelity’.

The exhibition at ASEM will be open to the public for the foreseeable future.