Who doesn’t love spending a whole day just lying down?
There’s nothing wrong with a lazy day here and there, but one village in northern Montenegro has gone a step further when it comes to doing absolutely nothing.
The people of Montenegro have long had to deal with being insultingly generalised as a nation of lazy people. How do the Montenegrins combat this stereotype?
By holding a competition to see who can stay in bed for the longest time, of course.
Welcome to the annual World Championship of Laziness. This year, seven competitors from a starting field of 21 had been lying down for 463 hours so far. They're vying for the coveted title of “laziest citizen” after smashing the previous record in a contest – it started twelve years ago – held annually in a little Montenegrin village in the mountains.
The settlement in question is an "ethno village" (essentially a model village, where regional traditions are kept alive in an authentic manner) called Donja Brezna (Serbian Cyrillic: Доња Брезна) although its more popular moniker is Etno Selo Montenegro.
A lying-down record of 117 hours was set at last year’s contest, but as this year’s competition entered a 20th day on Thursday, the remaining contestants said they were determined to keep going.
“All of us feel good, excellent, there are no health problems, they are pampering us, all we have to do is to remain lying down”, said 2021 champion thirty-eight-year-old Dubravka Aksic.
The rules stipulate that standing or sitting are considered a violation and grounds for immediate disqualification, but contestants are allowed to have 10 minutes every eight hours to go to the toilet.
Competitors can also use mobile phones and laptops.
Twenty-three-year-old Filip Knezevic, a first-time contestant from the northern town of Mojkovac, said he was confident of victory and picking up the €1,000 prize. “We have everything we need here, company is fantastic, time goes by quickly”, he said.
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