Wikimania 2019 bids/Armenia

Wikimania 2019 candidate cities:

~~Yerevan, Armenia~~ | ~~Perth, Australia~~ | ~~Prague, Czech Republic~~ | Stockholm, Sweden

WIKIMANIA 2019 YEREVAN

City proposed: Yerevan, Armenia.

Proposed dates: June 26-30, 2019, August 7-11.

Pre-conference June 26-27, 2019, August 7-8, 2019

Conference June 28-30, 2019, August 9-11, 2019

Number of participants: Up to 1 000 participants.

Contact person: Susanna Mkrtchyan

Armenia is a destination where you will be intrigued by history, awed by monuments, amazed by the landscape and charmed by local people. Armenia is the country of old legends and BIblical stories. To visit Armenia is to travel back in history and feel the spirit of more than 41 centuries, experience first hand the “country sheltered by Biblical Ararat”, home of Noah’s Ark. Armenia is the First Christian Country and has dozens of ancient monasteries and temples. Armenian Alphabet was developed in 405 AD, which enabled translation of famous scientific and literature pieces into Armenian thus making the available knowledge of that time accessible to Armenians. Biblical Ararat mount is visible from almost every corner of Yerevan which makes the landmark really amazing and leaves tourists breathless. Armenia has the longest ropeway and a zip-line in the world. Armenia is the place where one can taste diverse, organic and delicious food.

Why Armenia?

Goal

We have been building Wiki Community in our country since 2012. Year by year more and more people are becoming aware about Armenian Wikipedia, our community gets larger and knowledge based. We are now in a rising stage. In order to achieve maximum impact in dissemination of Wikipedia and attract more contributors, we need to organize larger event to attract wider audience. After organizing CEE Meeting, we have received wider outreach and publicity. Wikimania conference will be a huge step forward in bringing more people to Wiki movement in Armenia and more attention from various stakeholders.

We will involve young people from Armenia from the very first stages of event preparation and their engagement will help us to spread the word easily and promote volunteer work in Armenia.

In addition to this Wikimania in Armenia will host more wikipedians from neighboring Iran, Turkey, Georgia and former Soviet countries.

Venue

All venues proposed below are located in capital city Yerevan and will be provided for free. Here is the list of possible venues presented by order of preference. All of them are far from the Zvartnots Airport by 12-15 km.

Possible venues:

American University of Armenia - Has а large auditorium (for up to 1.300 people) as well as many other auditoriums, cafeteria, open-air amphitheatre, library etc. Max distance from hotels is 2 km.
Karen Demirchyan Complex - 4 km distance from downtown and main hotels. The complex has an outstanding architecture and consists of two main halls, which can host more than 1000 participants., a large foyer, suitable for catering, Hayastan conference hall and Argishti hall designated for diplomatic meetings.
Yerevan Cascade & Yerevan Matenadaran - Neighborhood complexes auditorium, and several halls inside. Opening ceremony can be done outside. The tent will be provided, if the weather is hot. Nearby cafes can be used for catering. Nice architecture and a stunning view. Max distance from hotels is 1 km.

American University of Armenia
Karen Demirchyan Complex
Matenadaran
Yerevan Cascade

Conference venues listed above will be able to accommodate up to 1,400 participants. All conference venues mentioned above will be provided free of charge. These venues have flexible meeting spaces that can accommodate multiple tracks for five days

Internet

Armenia has a very good network infrastructure and various internet providers.

Lodging

Main hotels and hostels are located in Downtown Yerevan which is 12 km far from the Zvartnots International Airport. We will transfer of all participants,no matter of the flight time, from Airport to hotels as it was done during CEE 2016 event with the support of our volunteers. As at least two options of venue are in the city center, participants will be able to walk there, to use subway, public transport or taxi (cost of 1-4 km ride is 600 AMD = 1.5 USD) to reach the venue from hotels. We can also arrange busses to transfer participants from hotels to venue. Hotel prices vary between USD 30-90; hostels between USD 10-15 per night. We were advised by organizations hosting large events in summer to book lodging at least a year in advance to secure accommodation as summer is a hot tourist season in Armenia. Besides, we will get accommodation discounts by booking in advance.

Catering

Yerevan has a number of catering companies that will accommodate all dietary requirements of participants (e.g., vegetarian, gluten-free).

Transportation

Here is a chart with flights and their average prices. Several charter flights to Barcelona, Rome, Heraklion and etc are operating in summer. Besides, the Government of Armenia is in negotiation process with several new Air Companies, which surely, will increase the geography of destinations by 2019 and decrease the ticket prices.

Destination	Frequency of flights per week	Airlines	Flight duration	Round trip ticket price in EUR
Paris	4 times	Air France	5h15min	560
Vienna	every day	Austrian Airlines	3h50min	520
Warsaw	6 times	LOT Polish Airlines	3h50min	210
Brussels	3 times	Brussels Airlines	3h40min	440
Athens	3 times	Aegean Airlines	2h45min	260
Kiev	every day	Ukraine International	3h10min	200
Moscow	every day 6 flights a day	Aeroflot	3h10min	180
Moscow	every day 2 flights a day	S7Airlines	2h55min	180
Minsk	2 times	Belavia Belarusian Airlines	3h10min	245
Doha	every day	Qatar Airways	3h00min	630
Dubai	every day	Fly Dubai	3h10min	420
Sharjah	4 times	Air Arabia	3h00min	300
Tehran	6times	Mahan Air	1h 15min	230
Beirut	2 times	Middle East Airlines	2h00min	330
Damascus	1times	Cham Wings Airlines	2h30min	280
Astana	2times	SCAT airlines	3h10min
Krasnodar	every day	Ural airlines	1h40min	165
Sochi	3times	Aeroflot, Ural Airlines	1h15min
Rostov	every day	Ural airlines	1h45min	173
St.Petersburg	5 times	Ural airlines	3h50min	295
Istanbul	4 times	Global atlas jet	2h30min	180
Tbilisi	6 times	Armenia Aircompany	0h30min	150
Tel Aviv	4 times	Armenia Aircompany	2h30min	210
Voronezh	1 time	Armenia Aircompany	2h10min
Mineralnie Vodi	1 time	Armenia Aircompany	0h55min

Participants will arrive to Yerevan Zvartnots International Airport , which distance from Downtown and main hotels is 12km. Wikimedia Armenia will arrange participants transfer from airport to hotels though Airport shuttle and taxis are available.

Dates

Any time in July - August, except the dates of Golden Apricot international film festival taking place in Yerevan (usually second week of July) will be a good time to host the conference as the weather would be nice and fresh products widely available (famous Armenian apricots, plums, cherries, peaches etc). Proposed dates are: June 26-30 or August 7-11, 2019.

Team

We have more than 700 Wikicamp alumni, who are in touch with different projects editors, mentors, coordinators, camp leaders, 13 Wiki Clubs leaders and around 300 clubs participants. Also our camp leader is a board member of the Volunteers bank Youth NGO (http://volunteers.am/) which voluntarily provides organizational support to large events in the country.

Previous experience.

"Wikipedia Education Collaborative" meeting 2017
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 (100 participants)
16 WikiCamps since 2014 (around 70 per camp)
More than 25 Wiki loves science events (more than 30 per event)
3 Wiki conferences with about 200 participants per event
3 Wiki loves monuments events in 6 different regions of Armenia (around 150 participants per event)
Wikimedia 2030 Strategy Armenian forum hosted in August 2017 (around 100 participants)

Visa

Armenia is a visa free country for most nationals. Please see below the most updated information on visas for foreign nationals. You can see the list of countries citizens of which can obtain visa only upon invitation from an organization in Armenia, e.g Wikimedia Armenia (most African countries except for South Africa).

Security and safety

Armenia is one of the safest countries in the region. Health precautions are minimal. Armenians are extremely friendly, hospitable and welcoming.

Meeting places and social life

Wikimedia Armenia, which is situated in the City center and close to many hotels, has enlarged its premises and now have a modern office of 500 sqm. This will be used as for works of organizational committee, as well as for organizing various socializing events. All mentioned venues are within proximity to restaurants, cafes. Participants can enjoy a diverse cuisine that suits all tastes (Armenian, Japanese, Italian, French, Syrian, Lebanese, Georgian, Argentinian, seafood and fusion).

Wikimedia Armenia office entrence
Crowded cafés near the Yerevan Opera House

Support

There are several organizations, that we collaborate with in diverse format, have preliminary agreements, that they would support Wikimania in Armenia: Armenian_General_Benevolent_Union, IDeA Foundation, Gulbenkian Foundation (already sponsors WM AM ), Tumo Centre of Creative Technologies (WM AM Board member is also Tumo's head ), Yerevan city mayor We have good connection with Ministry of Education, with National Academy of Science, with American University of Armenia and several NGO-s, so I suppose we will create Wikimania coordination council.