The Laziest Citizen competition entered its 30th day on Monday, breaking the previous 24-day record as five contestants remain lying in bed in hope of winning a 1,000-euro prize for the one who remains horizontal for longest.
The annual contest, held at a holiday resort in the Montenegrin village of Brezna, started on August 19, with 21 competitors.
The favourite to win is a 21-year-old from Serbia.
“It is a very psychological competition, and the participants are interesting personalities,” contest organiser Radonja Blagojevic, who owns the holiday resort, told media.
“They are a great team and some friendships will remain there,” Blagojevic added.
The contest was first held in 2001 in Brezna to poke fun at the Balkan stereotype that Montenegrins are lazy.
Most of the competitors have come from Montenegro, but there have also been participants from neighbouring Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, as well as from Russia and Ukraine.
According to the rules, competitors are accommodated at holiday resort, where they are given three meals a day and have the right to go to the toilet every eight hours.
Their health is monitored and their only responsibility is to remain lying down. Standing or sitting results in immediate disqualification.
“Earlier we had a rule that there was no getting up, not even going to the toilet, so who could last the longest. But since 2021, we introduced the innovation that every eight hours they can take a 15-minute break to go to the toilet,” Blagojevic said.
In the former Yugoslavia, various ethnic groups or nationalities were made the butt of jokes based on generalised stereotypes. Such jokes often characterised Montenegrins as lazy people who prefer to remain in bed.
Source: Balkan Insight
