PyCon is gone

That was the first conference of PyCon Russia 2013. 250 developers gathered in the snow-covered Yekaterinburg to discuss the latest trends in python development and communicate with each other for two days. Literally gathered from around the world: from Chile, Australia, USA, England, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. The list of Russian cities is also impressive: Yekaterinburg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Yaroslavl, Chelyabinsk, Miass, Ufa, Perm, Berezniki, Krasnoyarsk, Vologda, Khanty-Mansiysk, Tomsk, Odintsovo, Kemerovo, Kaluga, Irkutsk.


In the photo: Alexander Koshelev (Yandex, Moscow) trolls David Kramer (Disqus, San Francisco)


Foreign speakers are a separate topic. As it turned out in the backroom conversations, they agreed to come in many ways in order to visit Russia for the first time (the organizers paid for the flight, accommodation and meals). And, of course, they had a lot of impressions.
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So, Holger Krekel, the founder of the PyPy Project, the author of py.test and tox tweeted:

“First day at Pycon Russia in some forest 200 km from where the meteorite hit”.

Or, for example, Django-Evangelist Russell Keith-Magee saw snow for the first time in his life:



By the way, noticed the logo on the hat with earflaps? We presented such hats to all headliners - as a memory of the trip. (By the way, this is a recursive hat of Ushanka ...)



The program was very rich: reports in Russian and English, round tables, master classes and workshops. Traditional for PyCon lightning talks blew up the hall - there were a lot of volunteers and many informative speeches. In the evening, after dinner, you could choose your entertainment for the soul. In addition to traditional backstage communication, the participants were offered free billiards, bowling, a championship in board games and the mafia (the mafia was international) and a sauna. Those who are more inclined to intellectual leisure - went to the round table on porting and after - to the workshop on this topic. The workshop was led by Mikhail Korobov and he literally conquered us by personally baking cookies for the participants, they ported tea and cookies from ten in the evening until one in the morning :) Actually, we therefore chose the country format so that participants could not disperse immediately after conference, and fully communicate as much as you like.

Sponsors were also great. We have already convinced those who have been working with us for a long time that the best promotion is not a leaflet in a handout, but something non-standard and therefore memorable. So, for example, Naumen prepared and distributed branded popcorn at the conference (take popcorn, go listen to the reports):



Aydeko had a great game store, and also brought their bartender and prepared alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails.

From the organizers (IT-People), as a gift to the developers, were our traditional fruits with stickers, and also - for the first time in the arena - a girl dancing with live python:



Here are the first reports that we google the next day after the end of the conference:

Report by Andrey Svetlov: asvetlov.blogspot.ru/2013/02/rupycon2013.html
Report by Andrey Fefelov: afefelov.ru/post/44055961152/pycon-russia-2013
Sergey Matvienko's report: plus.google.com/102612720075670395425/posts/BdBExBSJHcV
Report of Konstantin Lopukhin: chtd.ru/blog/pycon-ru-2013

But short reviews on Twitter:

umi @umirra
Returned from #pyconru. I want more!

lensvol
Thanks to the organizers of #pyconru for the minimum number of jambs and a great time! # barsdessant

dair_targ
Many thanks to all the organizers and participants! It was interesting;) #pyconru

Chodex
When will the next #pyconru be? :)

olebedev
Thank you @gerasimovich_yu, apatrushev and all the organizers for #pyconru. Useful reports, interesting people. Time has passed with benefit!

@yumatov
This PyCon is just awesome! #pyconru

How do you determine whether the conference was a success or not? For our organizational taste, an event took place, if after it I immediately want to take a laptop and implement any idea heard from the conference participants. We will be happy if you write to us about such your experience!