Goodbye 2025! Hello 2026!

And thus yet another year of kites comes to a close.

And what a year it was! The sheer numbers are well above our expectations laid out at the end of 2024 … We helped kids make over 1.500 kites! We were at 12 kite festivals all over the world, we had 23 kite aerial photography sessions and 10 relaxed kite flying outings – with 60 cumulative kite flying days our kites were in the air more than once a week on average!

All this happy work went into stories you have enjoyed all year … intensely. We published our 100th article in January, and all together put out this year nearly 40 of them that were read by thousands of you, and we thank each and everyone who dived deep into our kite adventures.

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We shone in the media: Sergeja became a TV star, our kite stories were published in the largest newspaper in Slovenia, on a website for kids, and in The Lighthouse annual newsletter of Altra society.

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Our kite aerial photos were busy too – they were a part of the exhibition of Citizen science in Ljubljana, the great KAP exhibition Les Yeux du Vent in Dieppe, and the first KAP exhibition on the island of Prvić, Croatia. A kite aerial photo of Sipar archaeological site shot by Janez was recognized as one of the best photos on Wikimedia Commons and got the distinguished title of Featured picture, won a prize in the Wiki Loves Monuments Croatia photo contest, and was selected for the global Wiki Loves Monuments contest.

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We took part in some festivals for the first time, and ticked off some regular stops on the kite festival circuit. Castelló de la Plana in Spain, Zamárdi in Hungary, IKF Mangalore, IKF Yogyakarta, and Rare Angon festival in Bali were completely new – and absolutely amazing! – experiences for us, while IKF Gujarat, Jesolo Kite & Beach festival, Slovakia kite assembly and Creative Days of Faust Vrančić were basically like visiting old friends, almost family.

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Perhaps it was our kite workshops that were the best part of the 2025 kite year – due to amazing, exhausting, heart-warming, and very emotional workshops at Altra society, at the Artkamp festival in Maribor, at the Pippi Longstocking festival in Velenje, and at the Floating Castle festival at castle Snežnik. We still can’t really wrap our heads around the sheer number of kites kids and adults made with our help … over 1.500! Yes, over a thousand and five hundred colorful handmade kites flew and fluttered in the sky this year because of us …

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KAP Jasa – kite team Slovenia is a non-governmental organization working in the public interest in culture, and our core business is, as our name suggests, kite aerial photography. So we did our part: we took kite aerial photos of ancient churches and prehistoric hillforts, of Baroque architecture and historic suburbs, and of protected architectural ensembles.

We flew our cameras through storms and rainbows, above natural monuments, intermittent lakes, karst fields, our beloved Ljubljana Marshes landscape park – and we finally caught that elusive lake we were trying to get for years.

And we got ourselves some night flying monsters, LED kites! 🙂

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We had so much fun, we met so many old and new friends, we celebrated our eighth (!) anniversary, we experienced so much and had such fantastic adventures in 2025 … that 2026 will really have to do its best to top it!

Thank you all,

Ivor, Janez, Gregor, Jerneja, Sergeja, Timotej, and Saša
KAP Jasa – kite team Slovenia

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And now to our customary end-of-the-year treat by you for you: 10 most-read kite stories of 2025!

Enjoy!

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10th place: a flight over the Baroque Ljubljana

Ljubljana is a Central European city, adorned by masterpieces of Vienna Secession and famous because of master Plečnik. But its warm heart came from the south in the 18th century, when a group of intellectuals (that called themselves bees) brought Baroque to the then backwaters of Austrian empire.

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9th place: the island of Prvić

For years now the Creative Days of Faust Vrančić festival is our festival, people there are our people, and the beautiful island of Prvić is our island. It’s where our Summers end, and its sunny soul keeps us going through the winter.

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8th place: Pippi Longstocking festival in Velenje

“I have never tried that before – so I think I should definitely be able to do that,” said the intrepid Pippi, and so did we: we brought enough material for more than 800 kites to the amazing Pippi Longstocking festival in Velenje. After two insane days of kite making it was all gone – and Velenje was covered in colorful paper kites.

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7th place: a kite assembly in Slovakia

The sweetest little festival in the heart of Slovakia with a fantastic crew of kite masters from England, Hungary, India, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey: two incredible days of fun, kite flying, and parties stretching deep into the night. Ahoj Šarkany!

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6th place: a kite festival in Hungary

The lying meteorologists were, well, lying again – but the festival in Zamárdi on the southern shores of Lake Balaton was an incredible celebration of love, of comradeship, and of a unique legacy of the grandfather of Hungarian kite flying, István Bodóczky. We made a couple of friends for life there, and enjoyed some fantastic Hungarian food – so we will definitely come back for more!

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5th place: a kite festival in Italy

We still can’t really get what Filippo, Nat, Andrea and the crew did with the Jesolo Kite & Beach festival. In just four years Jesolo became a home of one of the largest kite festivals in Europe, and in early April when the town slowly wakes up from the Winter slumber the sky above the more than a mile long beach becomes almost as crowded as the streets – with over 300.000 people looking up in awe!

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4h place: a prehistoric hillfort

A sublime story of motherhood that starts in the Neolithic (and the first known dental procedure), goes through Bronze and Iron Age, the centuries of the Roman empire, the Middle ages and all the way up to now. Mother Goddess of the earliest inhabitants gave way to mothers goddesses of the Histri and of the Romans, and finally to the Mother Mary of the Snows, whose little Medieval church now stands at the top of the hillfort.

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🥉 Bronze medal: Festival del Viento in Castelló de la Plana

This festival simply blew us away. For two of us it was the first time flying kites on the Costa dels Tarongers, the Coast of the Orange Trees, and we were utterly fascinated by the setting, the people, the fun, the parties … But for our newest member it was his first kite festival ever – and it’s hard to say if he was extremely lucky (he was, of course), or totally unlucky, as this experience would probably never be surpassed.

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🥈 Silver medal: IKF Mangalore and all the stuff before and after

When after a great festival the good people of India ask you if you’d go to another kite festival, you can only say yes. Every day spent in India is worth seven at home in January. Bud nobody could expect the magnificence of Mangalore.

First, the festival itself, a parade of such kite masters we could only feel like impostors next to them. We never flew in a sky so crowded! We couldn’t imagine that one can squeeze another flying monster up there with hundreds of them dancing in the wind. But the masters are … masters.

Second, the fantastic trip across the immensely rich history – and great future – of this part of Karnataka. Driving through lush countryside, visiting one incredible temple after another, culminating in being face to face with an ancient idol.

The hilarious kite drying festival at the huge campus of Alva’s Educational Foundations was the cherry on the top – and the kids were helping us with a KAP session. The past is well preserved – and the future of Karnataka is in great hands!

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and the winner of 2025 is …

🏆 🥇 Gujarat recurring … Gujarat distilled 🥇 🏆

Well, what can we say. IKF Gujarat is the kite festival, a world kite championships of sorts, one of the greatest and most famous festivals on this planet. And is a bit out of this planet too.

We were flying kites in our beloved Ahmedabad, and in the surreal white salt desert of Rann of Kutch. We were again driven around by the Magnificent Manoj, and we were led again by Bakul the Roadmaster. We met – yes, again – the Ambassador of Slovenia to India and she was – again – flying kites on the green carpet of the Amdavad kite field. It took us five days to be completely exhausted – and completely happy.

And we met all the friends again, had one great dinner at Babalu’s and another great dinner at Moughal Chowk, we were entertained by our almost-family the Raos, and we flew patangs off the roof of the Turners (Granny made such an incredible lunch we were seriously thinking about getting a living permit).

We had a problem writing about Gujarat, because how can one do it without veering into pathos?

Impossible.

How could one write about friends and not get emotional?

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This concludes the 10 most-read of 2025 – and with them the year 2025. Thanks for reading … and be prepared, because: