The 14th “edition” of annual Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2025 took place in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in sunny Greece, from September 26 to 28. Organized by the Wikimedia User Group Greece, the conference included a wide range of different programs, including the Learning Day the day before the main conference program and a city tour on Saturday evening.
For me, it was my very first time attending Wikimedia CEE Meeting — and even my first such big international Wikimedia event. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I was very excited to meet people I had only known online for years.
Learning Day
On September 25, one day before the main conference program, we took a shuttle bus from our beautiful Grand Hotel Palace to the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki. The weather in Thessaloniki was amazing that day, and the Learning Day welcomed us with the same warm and friendly atmosphere.
The focus of the Learning Day was Linked Open Data (Wikidata/Wikibase), VIAF and Libraries. The main sessions were led by Camillo Pellizzari from Wikimedia Italia and Alan Ang from Wikimedia Deutschland. There were also guests from Latvia and Greece, who shared their presentations about national libraries, authority control, and Wikibase.
During the Learning Day, Camillo taught all participants how to contribute to Wikidata more comfortably and effectively. He showed us the most useful gadgets that everyone should enable, and also helped us create a common.js page for our accounts and add several helpful commands he shared with us.
He demonstrated and explained in practice how these gadgets and commands make our work with Wikidata and our home Wikipedias much easier and faster. In addition, he showed us several Wikidata queries, how they work, and how they help us contribute more effectively.
Both I and the second delegate from the Kazakh community attended all Learning Day sessions from beginning to end. After lunch, the topics became so interesting that we moved from the back rows to the very front, right in front of Camillo. He gave us valuable advice for Kazakh Wikipedia and Wikidata. Together, we discovered that the Kazakh websites Qalamger.kz and Adebiportal.kz could become good properties for Wikidata. After the Learning Day, Camillo created the necessary queries to propose both properties, and they were later approved — now any Wikidata item can include Qalamger.kz and Adebiportal.kz properties with links to those sites.
Camillo also suggested that we create WikiProject Kazakhstan, which I did soon after the CEE Meeting.
From Alan Ang, I learned that Wikidata was originally created by Wikimedia Deutschland and is actually their “child”. I also found out that communities can invite staff from Wikimedia Deutschland, such as Alan, to lead Wikidata sessions at our future local meetings — and Wikimedia Deutschland covers the travel costs for their staff.
All this information and inspiration from wonderful Camillo and Alan gave me many new Wiki ideas for the future!
The Voice of Youth
As a member of the CEE Youth Group, I was happy to meet many of my teammates in person again. We talked a lot about how young Wikimedians can bring new ideas, energy, and creativity into our communities. It was great to see that the youth voice is becoming stronger across the CEE region.
For me, the CEE Youth Group is more than just a project — it’s a friendly space where we can support each other, learn new things, and make Wikimedia more open for newcomers.
During the three days of the CEE Meeting, many members and friends of the CEE Youth Group led sessions on different topics — from the Youth Conference 2025 held in Prague in mid-May, to local achievements and projects in their communities.
Together with Caner from Turkey, Aiana from Kyrgyzstan, and Nikos from Greece, I co-hosted a joint session called “Let’s think together about the future for young Wikimedians”. It was organized as a discussion and round table, where we divided participants into four groups, and each of us became a peer facilitator. Every group received two questions about youth in Wikimedia, and participants could freely choose which two questions they wanted to discuss.
I was the peer facilitator at Table 2 — Tools & Fun, and I was lucky to have wonderful participants who were very active and engaged in the discussion. Each group discussed their questions for about 25–30 minutes. Afterward, all four peer facilitators came on stage to share short conclusions from each table.
The funniest moment for me was that, from Table 1 to Table 4, each facilitator’s summary became shorter and shorter — it turned into a small but funny tradition on stage!
As a result of our youth sessions, we managed to attract several new young participants to the CEE Youth Group from different countries. Among them was Nal, a young participant from Ljubljana, Slovenia, who after the conference founded the University of Ljubljana Wiki Student Club at his university and joined the Communication (youth social networks/channels) Working Group of the CEE Youth Group.
Our “boss” — Klára Joklová, Executive Director of Wikimedia Czech Republic, also gave an inspiring lightning talk on the first day titled “How do we organize 400 events a year with 5 people? (Czech way)” in Zeus Hall. Wikimedia Czech Republic had previously hosted the CEE Youth Group Meetings in November 2023 and 2024, as well as the Youth Conference in May 2025. Her talk truly motivated many participants and showed that nothing is impossible.
And… Memento Mori?
During the conference, I wore a hoodie that said “Memento Mori” — a Latin phrase meaning “Remember death. Remember you will die”. It might sound dark, but for me it was just a funny and symbolic reminder. Life is short, so we should do what we love, share knowledge, and make the world a little better together. Maybe that’s also what the Wikimedia spirit is about!
CEE Meeting 2025 gave me a lot of motivation and new inspiration for my work in the Wikimedia movement. I am thankful for everyone I met there — old friends and new ones.
I returned home with new ideas, stronger connections, and a big wish to continue growing as a Wikimedian. I hope to see many of these wonderful people again — maybe next time at Wikimania 2026!
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