Kites Over Vrhnika - 4th IKF Slovenia 2020
We did it again!
One of the most important task of a kite club is nurturing and spreading the culture of kite flying. So we were very excited when the Ivan Cankar Instutute of culture, tourism and sport in Vrhnika - a town some 30 km southwest from Ljubljana - called us and asked if we could do a ... kite festival!
And since the only thing bettter than a kite festival is an international kite festival, we called our friends from Zagreb, the Zmajoljupci - Kite Flying Lovers club! We met a day before for a quick kite making session to do some paper kites for kids, since a kite workshop was out of the question due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and on Saturday, 4th of July, we were at the Sport park Vrhnika with a bunch of kites!
Viktor, Maša, and Žare making paper kites for kids .. over a hundred were made!
In the morning the wind was not cooperating, but the paper kites flew perfectly ... we quickly ran out of little kites and the kids ran up and down with that special joy in their eyes - a joy typical for when the kite starts climbing to the sky.
Then we unrolled the big ones ...
... but the wind still didn't want to help ... The place was perfect, the summer day was impeccable - just the wind, the wind ... But, kite masters from Croatia and Slovenia did what they had to do and slowly coaxed the kites to leave the ground!
Soon the deltas, fleds, rokkakus, a nimble Revo, a Maxi dopero, a giant Trilobite and other kites coloured the sky above Vrhnika. A veritable spectacle had begun.
It was a constand fight with the wind that was just a bit too soft - but it didn't matter. We pulled and pumped and even ran up and down the football field, and the spectators were enjoying themselves.
It was hot and tiring -.and beautiful.
A famous journalist visited the festival, tried some kites - and wrote a cool article in the largest Slovenian newspaper, Slovenske novice!
The journalist Peter Hieng and Ms. Hieng flying kites
And the article about the festival in Slovenske novice.
The wind picked up a bit, so we tried to fly our giant, 22 m long Human fish / Proteus anguinus ...
But alas, it was not enough ... the giant kite couldn't fly, so we called it a day and packed our stuff ...
It was a great day flying, and we would like to thank Marija Zakrajšek of the Ivan Cankar Institute, who made the 4th IKF Slovenia - Vrhnika 2020 possible, to mr. Primož Hieng for his great article, to our Croatian friends and kite masters Žare (who came) and Žuža (who unfortunately couldn't be there, but will surely be next year!), to Viktor and Maša who made so many kites, who helped making the kids of Vrhnika happy, and who did an impromptu kite workshop - and of course to all of you who visited the festival. See you again next year!
(And, since we are crazy - the next day we were tired as hell, sunburnt, exhausted ... so we went to Barje and fley kites for the whole day!)
Photos by KAP Jasa, Ivor Bogunic, Sandra Tominšek, and Viktor Mramor.