It has been over 2 decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the years that followed, many former Soviet Block countries such as Czechoslovakia found their ‘old’ industrial societies thrust into a more modern European community.
This transition was to be fortuitous for modellers, as countries such as Poland and the new Czech and Slovak Republics were abundant with the sort of industrial skills that had previously began to disappear from the industries of their western neighbours.
Tradesmen migrated their skills into cottage industries, supplying detail sets and add-ons in various media for the plastic modelling market and it was not long before Czech companies such as CMK, Aires and Eduard became brand names defining the very best products available to the discerning modeller.
The Czech Republic is now arguably to modelling what Germany is to car manufacture and the success of Czech modellers at the UK’s Scale Model World competition has brought to prominence the impeccable standards of the Czech modelling community.
The Republic’s ModellBrno Exhibition has acquired a reputation for the quality and volume of the models in its competition and Geoff had no hesitation when invited to attend the show and spread the good word about the virtues of SMN.
Those of you who read my other show reviews will know that I am an evangelist for the European shows circuit and for that reason Geoff kindly invited me to attend the show with him.
The route to Brno is incredibly straightforward, as Ryanair operates a daily service direct from London Stansted to the city’s airport, with a flight time of less than 2 hours. An extra £7 per head for priority boarding proved to be a very worthwhile investment and, despite the criticism that plagues Ryanair’s operating philosophy, the whole experience was entirely efficient and satisfactory.
We arrived to beautiful weather and an equally beautiful landscape at a very pleasant regional airport, which was clearly a former Cold War fighter station. Alongside the row of Soviet era Hardened Aircraft Shelters now housing a mass of light aircraft, sat the immense airframe of an An-124 Condor transport aircraft which had Geoff and I fighting for nose space at the small window of our Boeing 737-800.
We were met outside the airport by our kind host, Tom Barták, and transported, along with a posse from the Milton Keynes Model Club, to our accommodation situated in the exhibition complex where the ModellBrno Show would take place; a brief journey of some 15 minutes.
For the first time this year, the show was open on Friday and so Geoff and I had a chance to sample the exhibition hall with fewer members of the public in attendance than could be expected on the Saturday. The hall was a superb facility with acres of table space and a competition area that was so large it could have been a propaganda trick, but believe me, every square centimetre was to be filled in the coming few hours.
A handful of military vehicles were on display inside the hall and Geoff got busy taking photos for the SMN Photo Reference section, while I was drawn to a fascinating stand full of WW2 memorabilia commemorating the involvement of Czech, Slovak and US Eagle Sqn pilots in the RAF.
The stand was staffed by 3 enthusiastic individuals in period RAF uniforms named, Milan Vacek, Jiri Hofmann and Petr Velan and 2 equally enthusiastic colleagues dressed in authentic WW2 USAAF uniforms and named Tomas Kinzel and Petr Radoch.
The 5 were keen to talk and provided a very illuminating insight into the contributions made to the RAF by their countrymen and by US aircrew prior to America’s formal involvement in the war effort.
In the time it took to walk around the hall and survey the wealth of club and trade stands that were in attendance, the competition tables began to swell with an unfeasibly large number of entries and the quality was consistently better than anything either Geoff or I had seen ever!
There was a veritable ‘MIG-fest’ and in addition to the mass of superb aircraft models, there was an equally great body of fine armour models and dioramas. Although English appears not to be as widely spoken in that part of the Czech Republic as in cities like Prague, communication never seemed to be a problem and the shows participants and visitors were very friendly, helpful and extremely welcoming over both days.
Consistent with every European show that I have ever attended, the quality, abundance and price of food available in the venue was superb and I enjoyed some delightful Czech Pilsner, a variety of local sausage much like German Krakowa with rye bread and mustard, that saw me through a long Saturday on my feet.
All-in-all the show was worth every bit of the effort required to attend it.
The facilities around the exhibition centre were very good and the Holiday Inn hotel on-site was extremely comfortable and well-staffed. ModellBrno is particularly well-organised and attended by a wealth of good traders, not to mention an army of superb modellers.
The trophies on offer to prize winners are very attractive and any recipient can be sure that a win in the competition represents a most creditable achievement given the lofty standard of competition that has to overcome.
The show has been so successful in recent years that it has become an immense organisational task, consequently, the exhibition organisers have now decided to make the event bi-annual and if you plan to visit the next show, it will take place in June of 2013.
So make a date in your diary and go and sample the defining standards of modelling, the friendly atmosphere and the very enjoyable experience that is ModellBrno.
Andy B.
