World Esperanto Congress 2025 (Brno)

I arrived in Brno on a Saturday afternoon. Lugging two heavy suitcases around wasn't easy, particularly as my first attempt from the bus station failed when greeted with a cascade of steps, but I had no reason to curse the location of my apartment. As a matter of fact, it couldn't really have been placed any better. Within less than a minute of leaving the apartment, I'm greeted by this:

The sunny weather really added to the experience:

As did the bright colours:

It was beautiful all around, and a delightful spot in which to eat on my first day:

I got to see this every day, too: the tram (free for us to use) to the conference venue picked up from a couple of hundred meters down the street.

There are other beautiful buildings nearby:

and monuments, both huge:

and smaller:

At times the place did come to a standstill. There was something involving the military on one day:

I wasn't sure what was going on. Not a single sound was being made.

That's not something I could say on the second Saturday, when the road was blocked off for a procession:

And plenty of noisy drummers:

It was still easy to see the buildings, of course:

No matter how condensed the crowd was:

This building is the Old Town Hall:

I got to enter it because I was invited to an event to meet the mayor:

I wasn't the only one invited, of course!

I also got to see Brno by night because we were bussed up to a castle for the opening-night spectacle:

I chose to walk back to the apartment rather than take a bus or tram because it was downhill. And then my eyes noticed something:

I know where I'd seen that before!

It's the cathedral from the congress logo!

I felt quite excited about that: it made it all seem very real!

The main square looked suitably beautiful at night:

Ostrava – kind of

Wednesday in these congresses is always an excursion day. I hadn't signed up to any of them because I wanted some time alone. Instead, I booked myself a first-class train ticket to Ostrava; a two-hour train journey which cost me about £10! I had the cabin to myself:

My ticket didn't go all the way to the main train station. I assumed that the train didn't stop there. It actually did; there seems to be something going wrong when Google translates the page from Czech. I didn't mind, though: after being around people for several days, I wanted some solitude and so was quite happy to take the long walk to the centre of the city. Most of it wasn't terribly scenic:

Although I did pass over a river:

And walked through a park:

Unfortunately, Google let me down. It directed me to a particular point, which I hoped would be a town hall, main square, or something like that. It was outside two garages for car repairs, so you can picture for yourselves that it wasn't a particularly charming neighbourhood.

I wasted some more time navigating but it was on my mind that I had been walking for about 75 minutes and would need to get back. I took a tram to what I hoped would be a more promising location; I had used cathedral as my search term. Unfortunately, the point where I got off was being reconstructed. I made my way to another short train station and caught a train to the main station, having discovered from my app that a train with the same number travelling from there and arriving at the other station at the point that mine was to leave existed. And so I booked another ticket in the same cabin to cover the difference.

That left me at the main station with an hour to kill but not having eaten. So I patrolled a bit until I found a restaurant, and ate there. No English spoken at all, but the meal was fine. It, two pints and some crisps came to a tenner. And then I retraced my steps back to the station.

The journey back was amazing. There was a man who popped around to take an order, showing me the business-class catalogue. These three drinks and packets of crisps? £5!

The Reason I Came Here: The World Esperanto Congress

It's not a coincidence that I (and not Clare) am in Brno: the World Esperanto Congress took place from July 26 to August 2. Despite Esperanto being the way I earn my living, I'm not a congress veteran. I've been to the two previous ones (in Turin and Arusha, Tanzania) as a full participant in theory; in practice, I was often working in the apartment. Clare and I signed up for one in 2009 (in Białystok, Poland) but decided it wasn't for us at the point we arrived and just did our own thing (which included getting confirmation of our mortgage, and a job offer for me). I was invited to participate for a day in 2018 (in Lisbon), so that doesn't count.

With my colleague Gabriel, I manned our desk on the Saturday evening at something called The Movement Showcase. It was cramped, hot and noisy, and not easy to operate in. We publish books but were only allocated half a table; demand swamps supply. If I'd flooded the table with books, there would have been a breakdown in the system, with people stopping to leaf through them. The solution: bring five books and give away bookmarks with a link so that people can win them!

Those QR codes were efficient but also meant that plenty of our older people didn't know how to enter the competition!

The event started proper on the Sunday morning in a venue which would be used throughout the week for concerts and suchlike. It's fair to say that a fair few people were present!

All together, there were 1132 people from 63 countries!

It was a very professional set-up, I have to say, with tables and a restaurant!

The days were filled with presentations, workshops, speaking practice, meetings, and so forth on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Getting to the university, where the day programme was held, was easy: our congress badges meant that we could use public transport free of charge, and I had a stop under five minutes from my apartment.

I ended up doing some work even though I had deliberately not put my name down for anything after overloading myself last year. There was a session called Books of the Year, with nobody's name tied to it. Last year I got a short bit of notice asking me to run that session, so figured I had better do it this year too. That meant an early start on Thursday, putting together a 60-minute presentation. In the event, it wasn't required because a couple of people in the room wanted to speak about their own books, and a couple of our authors were there and so could be asked to speak about what they'd done for us. That left me with only a little to do.

There was also a session where the (newly elected) Board of the World Esperanto Association took questions from the audience. I had a couple of my own but wasn't able to ask them: a friend had asked me to write a report of this session for publication on his website, so I was frantically drawing up notes. After that came a session in which the Esperanto Academy similarly took questions from the audience. That was a good workout for me, liaising with the audience, putting their questions on to the big screen, and trying to answer a couple myself. And then straight home to write the report. I didn't eat that day until it was done, and was in bed before 10. You see how things can take over if I volunteer?

I've barely ever participated in the evening arts programme, which consists of theatre, concerts and suchlike. The same was largely true here, except for the Friday evening. I confess: it was a lot of fun! I regret not making the extra effort to attend previously. I was clearly in the minority: look at how many people were in the building for the Variety Show!

A strange combination: this act was a Frenchman and a Slovak, dressed in Highland wear, playing the bagpipes!

I found elements of the week tiring from being around people constantly. I deliberately didn't retreat into solitude as easily as usual. But that also meant that I spent a lot of time with friends, and made a few new ones.

And that brings us to Saturday morning, and the Closing Ceremony. I loved the lighting!

I knew that there running an event requires plenty of time and effort. There's the paid conference team, of course, but also a committee of local organisers, running to seventeen in number. But just look at this list of other contributors asked to mount the stage to receive their applause:

That's 71 other people whose contributions helped the event to run!

And that's it until next year.

So it was time for a last day with friends:

And then a last breakfast, with this view from outside the McDonald's:

And that will be goodbye to Brno. I'm just about packed up, with my cases worryingly heavier than they were when I arrived, if the scales are anything to go by. Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong: Ryanair have put me in a middle seat with no way of editing, even though I definitely wouldn't have selected one for myself when booking. Fingers crossed that that's my punishment for having cases with too much in them ...