Vices are moral defects that poison the life of a person and the people around him. But this cannot be said about all negative personality traits. Laziness is considered the engine of progress. It is human nature to make life easier for oneself in order to save effort in order to achieve results in any field of activity. The reluctance to climb stairs led to the invention of the excavator, walking - the bicycle, washing diapers - Pampers disposable diapers. August 20 is World Laziness Day. The first talk about celebrating World Laziness Day came in 1984 at the Festival of Industry, Trade and Culture, which was held in Colombia. The organizers invited the participants to relax for at least one day and do nothing. In countries with a hot climate, nature pushes a person to rest during the day, a siesta, otherwise the body cannot cope with high air temperatures and tropical humidity. Therefore, the participants of the festival, held in the Colombian city of Itagui, a city with developed industry, gladly took up the initiative of the organizers. Over time, World Laziness Day became an international holiday. World Laziness Day is a hymn to rest and relaxation. On August 20, in honor of the holiday, Colombians put on pajamas, take beds out into the streets and hang hammocks. After which they lie down in their sleeping beds and demonstratively do nothing all day. In Montenegro, in honor of a funny celebration, competitions are held for the duration of stay on the sofas. Victory goes to the one who lies on the sofa the longest. Work is not a wolf; it won’t run away into the forest. Everyone who celebrates World Laziness Day in Russia remembers the famous proverb. The symbol of this vice in literature is Oblomov, the hero of the novel of the same name by I.A. Goncharova. A young nobleman who lived in the mid-19th century spent the entire day in a robe and slippers, being idle and doing nothing. Oblomov became a symbol of apathy, stagnation in personal development and laziness not only in Russian, but also in world literature. A. Voznesensky dedicated an entire poem to reflections on the topic of laziness. Another famous poet, I. Brodsky, also discussed this human vice. In “The Tale of the Danger of Laziness,” he ironically ridicules one of the seven deadly sins. Failure to fulfill duties and the habit of idleness are condemned in Christianity along with lust, anger, envy, greed and other shortcomings. The organizers of World Laziness Day believe that if a hardworking person allows himself to relax and take a break from worries about his daily bread once a year, there is nothing reprehensible in this. Therefore, feel free to celebrate the funny World Laziness Day on August 20: get some sleep, turn off your phone and the Internet, go for a massage and other body-relaxing treatments. A temporary renunciation of exploits in the workplace is sometimes simply necessary. A rested person is the embodiment of harmony: he demonstrates high labor productivity and speed of thinking, radiates calmness and tranquility.

The main character of the cartoon "A Box with a Secret", based on the fairy tale "Town in a Snuff Box" by V. Odoevsky, gets inside a musical device through a keyhole. Before the boy’s eyes, every detail of the mechanism comes to life and turns into a fairy-tale character. Bells, Hammers, Roller and Queen Spring perform a real theatrical performance in front of the sleeping hero. His experience will be the envy of many music box connoisseurs, for whom August 20 is a special day. The creator of the device is considered to be Geneva watchmaker Antoine Favre. In 1796, a Swiss master invented a mechanism that reproduces famous melodies. A. Far inserted it into perfume bottles and watches. In 1815, the first factory producing music boxes opened in Switzerland. Later, its branches began to operate in the United States. Factories produced mechanisms of various sizes - from pocket boxes to cabinet-sized devices. The latter could play alternately from 4 to 8 melodies. On August 20, all lovers of unique home decor and owners of family heirlooms celebrate Music Box Day. The first automatic devices for playing melodies appeared in Byzantium, the Middle East and northern Africa during the early Middle Ages. Over time, musical snuff boxes were transformed into boxes, and the fashion for them came to Europe. The products were produced with a winding and manual mechanism; the materials for the production of the box were valuable wood and metal. Musical boxes contained jewelry, tobacco, letters, business cards, face flies and other trinkets. In addition to the melody, which could be accompanied by the ringing of bells, the boxes amazed with the elegance of their external design. Their lids were inlaid with precious stones, decorated with ivory, gilding, carvings, and figures moving to the beat of music. The metal products resembled a small chest of drawers with several drawers. The upper tier housed the mechanism of the box, and the lower compartments contained jewelry. Devices with a body in the form of a piano and gramophone were very popular. The boxes were used for fun; their melodies delighted the ears of adults and children. Rare items found on the antique market include musical mirrors and snuff boxes, cigarette holders and inkwells. A mechanism for playing melodies, hidden in a drawer, was wound up at night for children, helping them fall asleep. Elegant boxes, many of which resemble works of art, are given to women today, just like hundreds of years ago. Representatives of the fair sex use them for interior decoration and, of course, for storing jewelry. Boxes made in the USSR play "Moscow Evenings", "Fur Elise" by Beethoven, "Polonaise" by M. Oginsky. The piece by the court jeweler Faberge, given by his children to Prince Yusupov on his wedding anniversary in 1907, reproduces François Boieldieu's march from the opera The White Lady. Connoisseurs of antiques and rare items in retro style will enjoy listening to these and other melodies on August 20 on Music Box Day.

On August 20, a funny holiday is celebrated - Cheburashka's birthday. The hero of the book “Gena the Crocodile and His Friends,” written by Eduard Uspensky, became the idol of several generations of children. The creator of the character named Cheburashka's date of birth at a meeting with orphans in 2005. Since then, every year on August 20, the birth of an animal unknown to science, living in hot and humid tropical forests, has been celebrated. The hero of E. Uspensky has become a symbol of a child who needs the guardianship and care of adults. According to the plot of the cartoon, the street child Cheburashka found true friends and was able to become a “good person.” On his birthday, festive events and charity events are held for children living in orphanages. In 2004 and 2006 The brown, furry character of the writer and storyteller with button eyes became the mascot of the Russian national team at the Olympics. At subsequent international competitions, Cheburashka constantly changed the color of her plush coat - it became white, then red, then blue. Viewers all over the world recognized this naive, sympathetic and kind character long before his “arrival in big-time sports.” The puppet cartoon was shown on big screens in many countries around the world. The exotic animal, which found itself in temperate latitudes with a box of oranges, kept chubbling all the time, i.e. fell. That is why the store director gave him such a nickname. However, not everywhere Crocodile Gena’s little friend is called the same as in Russia. In England, Cheburshaka is called Topl, in Sweden - Drutten, in Germany - Kullerchen or Plumps, and in Finland - Muksis. The most devoted fans of the sweet, spontaneous hero are the Japanese, who affectionately call him Chebi. The furry animal with big ears is adored by both Russian viewers and the Japanese, who have been delighted with this touching and cute hero since the release of L. Shvartsman's cartoon on the country's screens in 2001. In the language of the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun there are 2 concepts that reflect the depth and explain the love for the character created by E. Uspensky. The first is the aesthetic category “yugen”, which denotes the beauty of the unsaid. The second is “wabi-sabi”, devoid of luxury, refined and modest beauty. This explains the popularity of Chebi in Japan. E. Uspensky allowed director Makoto Nakamura, a fan of the talent of Yu. Norshtein and his “Hedgehog in the Fog,” as well as R. Kachanov and L. Shvartsman, director and production designer of cartoons about Cheburashka, to film a continuation of the story. In the Japanese version of 2010, Gena the Crocodile, the embodiment of the Russian intellectual, reads a book by the poet Basho, a master of the haiku genre. All the friends and enemies of the furry beast, including the old woman Shapoklyak, end up in the circus. Nakamura in his cartoon drew an analogy between Crocodile Gena and Cheburashka with Charlie Chaplin and the Kid. Children and adults in many parts of the world celebrate on August 20 the birthday of the most touching character E. Uspensky. The organizers of charity events held in honor of the birth of Cheburashka annually draw attention to acute social problems and orphans who need to be surrounded with love, care and attention.

On hot summer nights, there is an irresistible desire to go outside to freshen up and clear your head, or spend time on the banks of a river, which gives off a cool feeling, but that was not the case. As soon as a person leaves the safety walls of the house, dozens of little “vampires” attack him. Their annoying squeak causes irritation, their bites itch terribly, which is why few people like mosquitoes themselves. However, even such an insect, harmful in every sense, has its own holiday. August 20 is World Mosquito Day. With the onset of summer, hordes of blood-sucking insects are activated, for which humans become a desired target. If you find a tick on yourself or become a delicacy for gadflies, fleas, horseflies, mainly summer residents and lovers of hiking in impenetrable forest thickets, then mosquitoes will find you everywhere. Even in a city apartment they will get their prey if you have not prudently placed a protective net on the windows. It is enough just to turn off the light and plunge into silence, which will be broken by a thin squeak, and then it’s a matter of little things - the mosquito will swoop down on its victim and will draw blood from it under the cover of darkness, like a real book villain. If a person sleeps, then by the morning, he risks waking up with a scattering of reddened bites. In fact, only female mosquitoes are thirsty for blood. Males never go out to hunt humans. Blood is not even their main source of food. Most little vampires feed on plant nectar, like butterflies, but females, alas, cannot reproduce without human blood. For them it is a nutritious "soup". Blood plasma and red blood cells contain proteins that are digested by the insect's digestive system to form amino acids, which the body uses as building blocks to create its own egg proteins. Scientists have long tried to figure out why mosquitoes show a clear preference for some people and avoid others. There are several reasons for this offensive selectivity. Mosquitoes prefer to bite people with thin skin. Elderly people are less likely to become their victims. Little bloodsuckers are crazy about children and teenagers, who have the thinnest and most delicate skin - it is easier to pierce it to draw blood. However, this factor is not a priority for mosquitoes, since they choose their prey by smell. Insects like to bite obese people, people with a sweet tooth, and people with diabetes. It turned out that they react not only to the smell of sweat, but also to estradiol and acetone, which in such people are released along with carbon dioxide when exhaling. Mosquitoes prefer people with blood types I and II. Scientists have not yet figured out the reason for such preferences. Insects love certain types of perfumes and skin care products. They are especially attracted to floral scents. Perhaps you are bitten more often because you wear a perfume that is considered “tasty” among the mosquito fraternity. Female mosquitoes can live for almost a month, but the lifespan of males is much shorter. The insect makes that same annoying mosquito squeak due to the flapping of its wings. In mosquitoes they are very thin and generally invisible in flight. On average, an insect makes about 1000 strokes per second. Mosquitoes colonized the planet long before humans appeared and have no plans to become extinct anytime soon. Today there are more than 3,000 species. According to statistics, bites from these insects are much more likely to result in human death than, for example, shark attacks. Mosquitoes carry many dangerous diseases, the most famous of which is malaria. Although to their credit, these insects occupy an important place in the ecosystem. Little vampires, like bees, carry pollen. They also become food for many species of birds, fish and frogs, and their larvae clean the water by feeding on detritus - dead organic matter that forms after tissue breaks down.

Every 3rd Sunday in August is Russian Air Fleet Day, when pilots, aviators and all workers in this field are honored. The professional holiday was established by a special Decree of the Russian Federation in 1992, and its history goes back centuries. For the first time, a semblance of an air force appeared under Nicholas II. His decree of August 12, 1912 separated them into a separate aeronautical unit. A year later, the tsar awarded special insignia to military pilots. And although French aircraft were used, by this time attempts to create their own designs had already been successfully implemented. The first Russian aircraft with a gasoline engine was the Kudashev model, and the representative of heavy artillery was the Russian Knight biplane. It was he who became the prototype of “Ilya Muromets” - the national pride of the empire. Two years after the creation of the air fleet, during the First World War, military flying units were already actively participating in battles. After the revolution of 1917, both military and civil aviation began to develop rapidly in the Soviet Republic. On May 1, 1918, an air parade was organized for the first time after the war. It took place on the Khodynka field, and was hosted by Lenin, who took an active part, not only examining the equipment, but also talking with the pilots and workers. Those who were present at the parade that day were amazed by the aerobatic maneuvers they saw performed by pilot I.N. Vinogradov on his small plane. This was the first demonstration flight over Red Square, which went down forever in the history of the Air Fleet. The further development and popularization of aviation among the population of the USSR, including the formation of the Moscow Aviation Institute and the development of parachuting, prompted the government to create a regular thematic holiday, separate from the traditional parades. Which was realized in 1933. The chosen date, August 18, remained unchanged until 1980. Then it was decided to hold the celebration on a weekend in the third week of August. Undoubtedly, on this day it is worth noting the merits of aviation technology developers, designers and testers, thanks to whose work the “heavenly” fleet has demonstrated its development throughout time. And although today Russia does not have an advantage in the quantitative measurement of units of equipment in use, there is a tendency towards a major modernization of the fleet. On the holiday, various events are held at airfields in many regions of the country, demonstrating to everyone the skills of pilots and parachutists, and interesting aircraft models. Exhibitions are organized introducing the historical development of aviation, and even exhibits from excavations of military operations, once again indicating how much technology has progressed recently. Let us add that on February 9, Russia celebrates another aviation holiday - Civil Aviation Day.

Holidays of Belarus - Air Force Day

Sports Day in Kazakhstan

Catholic Feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Neo, the hero of the Wachowski brothers' science fiction films, believes that he lives in a matrix where everything around him is a simulation. The illusory world, which with the help of 3D creates the effect of reality of what is happening on a smartphone or computer, is called virtual. To simulate it, software and special sensory devices are used that affect the organs of smell, touch, vision and hearing. A holiday was invented in honor of the artificially created environment using computer technology. August 20 is Virtual Worlds Day. In recent years, the number of Internet users has reached 5 billion people. About 63% of the world's population plays virtual games, participates in webinars, attends online training courses and uses VR simulators. Some of these events take place in illusory worlds and spaces created using computer graphics. Immersion in this artificial environment does not raise doubts about the reality of what is happening and gives the user the opportunity to become a direct participant in the events. An unusual holiday appeared in 2008 on the initiative of the Association of Virtual Worlds. According to its members, a believable simulation of reality through three-dimensional modeling of space requires close observation and study. Like any innovation, virtual worlds are fraught with various risks - from the theft of personal data and theft of the results of the work of network users to a detrimental effect on the human psyche. Artificially created reality is actively used in marketing, attracting customers to goods and services and increasing the level of sales. Modern technologies are used in the entertainment industry, at exhibitions, in online training of doctors, in the design of industrial equipment, in creating real estate designs and in other areas of life. Virtual worlds are where gamers spend most of their lives. For their convenience, manufacturers supply computers with special software, produce helmets and glasses, joysticks (gamepads), and gloves with built-in sensors. Even by historical standards, the recently artificially simulated reality seemed like a prospect for the distant future. Virtual Worlds Day is an excellent reason to re-read science fiction novels, watch the latest film in the cyberpunk media franchise “Resurrection of the Matrix”, “Source Code”, “The Thirteenth Floor” and other films. The rate of implementation of VR technologies in all areas of life is growing year by year. Therefore, all fans of interactive media and augmented reality celebrate August 20 as Virtual Worlds Day.

Estonia's Restoration of Independence Day (Taasiseseisvumispaev)

Saint Stephen's Day in Hungary

On August 20, in the folk calendar, the holiday of Marina-Pimena falls. The name of this day is associated with the names of Marin of Caesarea, Pimenov the Many-Sick and the Faster. Pimen the Many-Sick, being very sick from birth, once persuaded his parents to move him to the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. There, contrary to the aspirations of his family, the young man began to pray for the prolongation of his suffering in the name of Christ. God heeded his prayers: when the monastery servants came out to Pimen, they saw that he was dressed by angels in monastic attire. The man was left as a monk in the monastery, but the brethren did not accept him for a long time, burdened by caring for their sedentary comrade, leaving him without water and food. Pimen did not hold a grudge against the monks, spending all his time in fervent prayers. One day, Pimen was able to cure another sick monk, making the healed man promise to help the sick. However, the lazy monk broke his vow and fell ill again. Pimen was ill all his life, recovering only three days before his death. Healthy, he was able to say goodbye to the brethren forever and take communion. On the day of his death, three pillars of fire rose above him. His relics are kept in Anthony's Cave. The namesake of Pimen the Many-Sick, Pimen the Faster, who is also remembered on August 20, was an ardent servant of Christ. He fasted constantly, but was full of strength and love for the Lord. The faster could not only heal the sick, but also foresee the future. So, one day he saw the death of the founder of the Pechersk Monastery - Kuksha. Having proclaimed his death, he himself gave up the ghost. Martyr Marin of Caesarea was a warrior, he was respected and rich. One day he was appointed to a higher position. His envious man went to the judge and revealed that Marin preaches Christianity. Then the judge offered Marin a choice: to stay alive by making a sacrifice to idols, or to die in his faith. Marin publicly declared that he was not going to renounce Christ. Then he was beheaded. Since the memory of several saints is honored on August 20, a sufficient number of traditions have developed that people strictly observe. On Pimen they tried to help the suffering, treating them to honey and fruits. Gifts were given to orphans in orphanages. Widows who had lost male support were helped to collect bread. On August 20, people continued to prepare for autumn. The most beautiful tradition of this holiday is seeing off the cranes flying south. The women were waiting for the storks that day. Seeing them, they made their deepest wish - to conceive and bear a healthy child. From this day on, winter crops began to be sown. People believed that by Pimen summer thunderstorms with lightning dangerous for peasants would end. From Pimen, the birch trees began to turn yellow and shed their leaves. In addition, from that day on there was a ban on picking wild raspberries. Also, the procurement of late-flowering medicinal herbs continued at Pimen. Housewives, in honor of the harbinger of autumn, baked pies with late varieties of raspberries. Signs for Pimen:

Baha'i Holidays - Feast of the Nineteenth Day of the Month of Asma

Orthodox holidays on August 20:

Memorial Day of St. Anthony of Optina

Memorial Day of the Venerable Martyr Dometius the Persian

Discovery of the relics of St. Mitrofan, the first Bishop of Voronezh