Vid Pacator traveled to the island of Utopia in 1518 out of curiosity about their perfect political system and ideal society. During his two month stay, he observed their harmonious communal way of life where everyone helped one another and had equal access to goods, though they closely monitored each other's behavior. However, he was disturbed by their trial and enslavement of adulterers. While religion was freely practiced, Utopia later declared war on Scotland to gain new land, using sabotage and assassinations carried out by children soldiers. Shocked by this, Vid cut his trip short, feeling Utopia's military affairs and social control were unacceptable though it was otherwise a positive tourist destination.

1. My journey through Utopia
-by Vid Pacator-
My name is Vid Pacator. I am 39 years old and I was born on May 10th
1479 in Sofia, in the
Ottoman Empire. My parents are Bulgarians and we are one of the few families which did not
suffer any oppression under the reigning Ottomans. However, the bad political and social
conditions in my home occupied my thinking a lot. I studied in Prague at the Charles-
university and devoted myself to politics and philosophy. I like to philosophize about how to
create better conditions in Europe. Some time ago a good friend had told me about “Utopia”,
an island with a perfect political system and an ideal society. This made me very curious. In
this report, I will tell you how I went on 13th
June 1518 to Utopia, to give me a personal
picture of the island and possible to find answers to my questions.
I traveled several weeks to the rich trading city Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I stayed there
one night, recovering a little from my journey . At the next day I found a ship in the port of
Amsterdam on which I could start the first part on my trip to Utopia. Via many stations about
which I swore to keep silence I finally reached Utopia. When I arrived on the island, I noticed
first that everything looked the same. All the houses, all the gardens, all the roads were built
the same. After I had walked through the streets for a while, I went to the market place. There
were gathered many people, who were about to fetch food and other things. It seemed
amazing to me that people should not pay anything for those goods. Everyone received what
he needed. Free of charge.
After I had had the first impressions of Utopia, I looked for a hotel in the city Aequilitas. I
quickly found a hostel in which I could stay the night. It was a simple house in the style of
New Objectivity. The walls were made of stone from the outside and from the inside of
concrete. The roof was covered with mud bricks. All facilities were cubic. The host told me
the benefits of such an house, e.g that it is inflammable, and he explained to me that every
house is built on the same principle. I did not want to occupy myself the whole evening with
the construction of a house, but I went again to the city center. I noticed that most people,
whom I had seen working at noon, did not sit in bars in the evenings, just as people do in
Prague and other European cities, but gathered in "common areas". They played cards, drank

2. wine, or read. Although a game of cards was at that moment the right thing for me, I moved
on.
A short time later I came to the marketplace, on which a few hours earlier had been a hustle
and bustle of customers and farmers offering their goods .You didn't see a place full of
friendly citizens any more, but a gloomy place with long shadows in the flickering light of
torches where some kind of negotiation took place. It was apparently a trial. Since I wanted to
know how a court case proceeded here in a perfect state, I dived into the mass, listening to the
judge:
"The accused Quintus is blamed of having betrayed his wife.
The sentence should be carried our immediately after the end of the judgment. Both
defendants are pleaded guilty and therefore shall take maximum penalty! We ask now for a
vote." I asked myself what the punishment was, and before I could realize who had voted, I
heard the echoing voice of the judge:
"The vote is clear. The verdict is: maximum penalty”!
You could hear somebody howling, and only now I noticed the second cage in which the
delinquent, Quintus, sat. He wept and prayed. Also the woman was afraid. She was trembling
all over. I now expected a flogging, as I knew from home. But contrary to my expectations,
the sinners got chains on and their clothes were torn from their bodies. You could feel the dark
mood of the people, while the offenders had to put dirty rags on in front of everyone. The last
thing I could see was that both were dragged from the square into the town hall. I was very
shocked by this event, even more as I later found out from my host, that both were taken into
slavery.
Despite the negative sentiment that I had received that night, I slept well during my first night
on the island. I couldn't cease considering this incident for quite a long time. But there was no
further incident during the first week after my arrival.
I found out a lot about life and the coexistence of the Utopians. They lived together in a nice
and friendly way, helped each other and had a strict daily routine. I learned that all men were
working 6 hours a day. The children had compulsory education.
It surprised me that there are no beggars, and no prostitutes were seen in the streets, as was
common in my home country. However, I always had a strange feeling when I strolled around

3. in Aequilitas. Although the people lived in harmony, they seemed to control each other.
Everybody has a close look on the activities of everybody else, but that doesn't seem to
disturb anybody.
One of the rules on the island is the prohibition of idleness. If someone is lazy , a fellow
citizen reproaches him and very soon he works more or continues with his leisure time
activities. Here, I should probably explain that leisure time on Utopia is incompatible with
drinking, gambling, sleeping around, but means training, playing with friends and family or
studying. The favorite leisure time activity of the Utopias is listening to academic lectures.
By now, I thought about immigration, but I wanted to see the whole of the island first.
Therefore I decided to look for a church and a parish the very next day, as I had been brought
up as a Christian from an early age. Next morning I went to the market place, which
apparently was the center of the city. After I had asked some farmers, I realized that Utopia
was not Christian nor Jewish nor dominated by Muslim faith, because on the entire island
there was a general religious freedom. Each religion was tolerated anywhere on the island.
That was a strange feeling, because in my home only Islam is recognized as the official
religion and followers of other religions are pursued.
This was a very liberating feeling for me.
After I had spent two months in Utopia, something happened, which made me feel, that’s not
worth to stay there. On this day, August 27th
1518, Utopia decided to expand. The senate who
consists of the mayors and the so called Tranibores of the single cities declared that there the
population had grown so much that there was no longer a guarantee for proper conditions of
living for everybody. The overpopulation should be eased by gaining colonies abroad. That
meant that the Utopians had to establish settlements in a new country. That is why the senate
claimed that a part of Scotland should be conquered. Scotland, of course, denied this, and the
state Utopia, under other circumstances so peaceful and harmonious, declared war to
Scotland. So I experienced one of the bad sides of Utopia.
Because the warfare of the Utopians was horrible.
In school, children were instructed for war, to fight at the front. The war was different from
what I knew from Europe. However, things turned out less worse than I had expected. Men,
women, slaves and children were brought in readiness, but direct conflict was avoided. It

4. appeared that silent war and strategy had a higher reputation here. Men and children were
incited to do acts of sabotage and assassinations. For instance, the Scottish Captain and his
generals should be stabbed in their sleep by assassin-children. The men did sabotage at the
ships of the Scots so that their vessels would burst in waves which would be strong and
forceful in front of the cliffs of Utopia at the beginning of autumn. This is what happened, and
within two months the Scots lost half of their men, ships, their generals and the war.
What happened to the survivors and the rest of the citizens, I could not find out, because I
started my way home as soon as possible, as it was clear to me that I did not want to live in a
country where children served as soldiers.
However, I can say that my trip to Utopia as a whole gave me a positive impression. I would
even travel there for a second time, but I would not live there, because firstly the military
affairs and, secondly, the control there, seem unacceptable to me.
As tourist destination Utopia would get 4 out of 5 stars from me.
This report of Vid Pacator was detected in Prague
in a forgotten cabinet of the academic library
and translated from Latin to English
by our science writers Marlon B. and Michelle M.