Next KDevelop Team Meeting in Mykolayiv Proposal

Sat Nov 22 22:44:21 UTC 2008

Hey,
looks like it's about time to start planning our next team meeting. And as 
I've promised, I'm putting together a proposal to hold it in my home town of 
Mykolayiv in Ukraine.

== Agenda ==

The best time for the meeting is mid April - mid May. I have time to organize 
the meeting only in April, so we have three options:
13-19 April
20-26 April
25 April - 1 May

Later is the better as weather in mid April is not stable (it might be raining 
for the whole week). In any case, it should be really warm and nice even 
during rains. Usually the last week of April has an ideal weather, but I can't 
guarantee that for the next year :)

== Venue ==

My university is ok with us sitting there during the week. We'll have the room 
in university library (comfortable space is for about 15 people, but 20 will 
fit if necessary :)). We'll have a projector available for the duration of the 
whole event.

There will be restriction on hacking time. We can start as early as 6:00 in 
the morning, but we should be finished by 21:00-22:00. I think I can negotiate 
one overnight hacking session (we would just need some vodka for the 
university security guys ;)), but that will work reliably only for one night. 
In any case, vodka will definitely solve any problems if we stay too late :)

If we have an "official" part on weekdays, my chair would like us to give 2-3 
presentations for CS students about Unix programming (with KDevelop or not). 
In any case, I wouldn't expect lots of interested people coming to join us. So 
unlike in Munich, this is going to be a strictly "internal" event focused 
mostly on discussing/hacking and not on presenting. 

Internet connection will be provided by the university. Usually when I work 
from the university I have speed around 1Mbps. In the evening the connection 
is much faster. There're no download/upload limits.
As a backup, we'll have a 3g modem with 2Mbps connection.
So, it's not like you'll be able to download pr0n from torrents, but the 
connection should be more than enough for regular hacking.

== Accomodation ==

Hotel prices (as of today) are ranging from 20 to 50 euro per night. There're 
plenty of hotels in the city.
But it is best to rent appartments for everybody coming. For about 330-450 
euro we can rent a flat with 3 rooms for (min) 3 people for the whole week. 
It's also possible to rent an individual flat for everybody for about 30 
euro/day.
Renting flats is really preferrable in Mykolayiv as you'll get as much comfort 
as possible for less money,

== Food ==

It takes 15-20 mins of nice walk across the river to the city center where all 
the food places are located. It's possible to get a decent 3 course dinner for 
7-10 euro (no guarantee prices won't go up next year btw).
Of course, there're cheaper places (like tons of pizzerias with 2.5-4.0 euro 
for a large pizza).
It's possible to have a dinner at more expensive restaurants starting from 22 
euro.
When I go to my favourite restaurant (which happens to be the Ukrainian food 
restaurant ;) ), I usually spend about 13-14 euro there for a 3 course dinner.

== Money and Sponsorship ==

Like the last year, we definitely need sponsorhsip. Especially for travel and 
accomodation.

I will have the budget as well for the conference (don't know the exact number 
yet). In the worst case this will cover daily pizza for us (with delivery to 
the university). In the best case I will also be able to cover the 
"social"/"touristic" program.

== Social Events and Tourism ==

Depending from the amount of funding I can get, we'll have up to two options:
1) trip to local winery (20km) with wine tasting + visit to ostrich farm + 
restaurant (with ostrich omelet of course) 
2) trip to the rocket museum (150km) located in the place where real soviet 
rockets were located (you can get some idea about what's there from pictures 
in my album: 
http://picasaweb.google.com/alexander.dymo/UkrainianRocketMuseum#)

== Getting There ==

1) For people coming from Russia, usually there're direct (and really cheap) 
flights to Mykolayiv from Moscow in spring and summer. Please check utair.ru 
for the availability of those flights. In any case, there're direct trains to 
Mykolayiv from Moscow (~26 hour trip) and Saint-Petersburg.

2) Flying to nearest airport in Odessa (130km). 
There're direct flights to Odessa from Vienna, Riga, Istambul, Warsaw, Prague, 
Budapest and Moscow.
The discount airline flying to Odessa is Air Baltic (through Riga). 
Another cheap option is usually LOT (through Warsaw).
Other airlines are: Austrian, Malev, Ukraine International, CSA, Aerosvit.

Odessa is actually a preferred choice. If we will have less than 15 people 
coming, I will be able to organize transportation from the airport to 
Mykolayiv.

3) Flying to Kiev (lots of direct flights from Europe and US) including 
discounters like Air Baltic and WizzAir, and then taking a train.
Overnight train trip (sleeper car) to Mykolayiv takes 10 hours and costs about 
16-17 euro one way.

4) Going from Berlin to Odessa by train (train goes 3 times per week, trip 
time: 1 day and 12 hours). I don't have exact information about the fare, but 
it should be about 200 euro two-way. 
Niko might want to take train from Prague to Odessa (there's no train from 
Austrian cities).

== Some info about Mykolayiv ==

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykolayiv
Wikitravel: http://wikitravel.org/en/Mykolaiv

Other links:
http://ukrainetrek.com/Nikolaev_city.shtml
http://www.gotonikolaev.com/index.php?page=about

There're also some pictures of the city in my own album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/alexander.dymo/MykolayivUkraine#