Hello, everyone! In September the Central Eastern European region met at their annual regional conference https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2024. It was an opportunity for the region to discuss, collaborate, appreciate Istanbul cats https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cats_at_Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2024, learn and… celebrate! This last element happened through WikiCelebrate https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/WikiCelebrate, a project in which we regularly show our gratitude to volunteers who tirelessly work on bringing free knowledge to the world.

At the CEE Meeting we celebrated Mārtiņš Bruņenieks, in the projects known as user:Papuass https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Papuass. Since his first small maintenance edit made in Latvian Wikipedia almost 20 years ago, he has taken on many roles: he is an administrator, article author, regional connector, campaign organizer, and translator. Mārtiņš is now the author of more than 3,000 articles in Latvian Wikipedia across various topics. Readers can learn from him about Croatian folk dance https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lind%C5%BEo, a lake in Azerbaijani https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarisu, a British throne succession https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%93ctec%C4%ABba_uz_Lielbrit%C4%81nijas_troni, or Latvian female BMX racer https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_Monika_St%C5%ABri%C5%A1ka, and many, many other topics. He also supports the largest campaign in the CEE region: the CEE Spring https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring.

Learn more about this Latvian contributor, with more than 155 000 contributions spanning across the Wikimedia projects, and join the celebrations! You can read the blogpost on Diff https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/10/29/from-closing-tags-to-opening-collaborations-wikicelebrating-martins-brunenieks/and on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/WikiCelebrate/M%C4%81rti%C5%86%C5%A1 (where you can also congratulate Mārtiņš)

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And if you would like to help us in celebrating more amazing Wikimedians, you can recommend them through the WikiCelebrate form https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/WikiCelebrate!

Happy celebrating and CEE you!