Last week I had a chance to attend an exciting event – BarCamp Baltics, which took place in Riga (Latvia). I was invited to this un-conference as one of Tajik bloggers. Because of the hassle with visa obtainment I had no desire to go to Riga, but taking into consideration that there might not be such a chance in the nearest future to attend an event which would gather many young people from former Soviet Republics, Eastern and Central Europe, I decided to go through all of the hardships that might occur on my way to BarCamp.

Three people from Tajikistan were invited to un-conference in Riga. Those who do not know, the conference of bloggers is called un-conference because it is not really a conference. So, it is a conference, but not really like a traditional conference. It is organized by the participants.

It was problematic for us to obtain visas in the nearest Latvian embassy because it is located in Tashkent. Although some of our colleagues from Kyrgyzstan assured us that there will be no problem to get a visa in Tashkent we did not go there. First of all because of the travel expenses and we had no guarantee that we will get visas for sure.

But the main problem for us was that all of us are working in international organizations which are not really welcomed in Uzbekistan. More than that, we had to get Uzbek visas first, which I suppose would be more problematic than getting a Schengen visa. We even heard a scary story about a woman who was detained in Uzbekistan for a long period of time just because she worked in an international organization which operated in another country.

After a long time of negations with each other we decided to go to Moscow. To our luck, it was the right decision. We obtained our visas in two days and went to Riga by train. It was an excellent trip. I was happy to travel through western Russia and observe the beautiful forests on both sides of the railway. The Latvian Express was an old Soviet style train, but it was comfortable and I really enjoyed the trip.

The first thing we did in Latvia we went to the hotel where two of my colleagues were planning to stay. After that we went to Reval Hotel, the biggest hotel in Latvia where the BarCamp took place. We were warmly welcomed by the help-team. They gave us packages with notepads, pencils, pens and some other important things.

A guy from the help-team, named Richards, took us to the city for sightseeing. It was interesting for me to see the historical places of Riga and it very much reminded me Prague though many people say that they look different.

The second day there was organized a press-conference and an opening ceremony. After the opening ceremony people wrote on the board the topics of their presentations and the time. From noon till 7 p.m. simultaneously in four rooms were held twenty-minute presentations (you can access them on the BarCamp site) about the new media technologies.

One of the presenters was me. I doubted that anyone would be interested in my topic but I had about ten people and it was enough for me. I talked about the development of new media technologies in Tajikistan, particularly blogging. My colleague made another presentation about the projects of his organization. Both were related to development of Internet in Tajikistan.

Although I have doubts about the bright future of new media technologies in Tajikistan, especially during the everlasting energy crisis, my colleagues from Latvia, Belorussia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia said that in the beginning they had the same problems as we do now and we should not give up in promotion of new media in our country.

The third day of the BarCamp was dedicated to more presentations during a session called Pecha-Kucha. In five minutes people could make shorter versions of their presentations. Before pecha-kucha those who needed funding made small presentations to donors and investors.

Actually it was a big fun. Thanks a lot to the organizers of the BarCamp for inviting me because I had an opportunity to meet new people from other countries who know a lot about the new media technologies and I met with people who I have known for a long time.