New Year holidays in 2017 will be shorter than usual. The Russians will start resting on December 31 and will end on January 9. Life has prepared a comparative selection of New Year's holidays in different countries.

Belarus

Oddly enough, there are no New Year holidays in neighboring Belarus. Only 1 and 7 January are considered public holidays.

Germany

In Germany, as in most European countries, Catholic Christmas is more popular than New Year. Holidays here are 24, 25, 26 December and 1 January.

Great Britain

The British love Christmas and New Year equally, so the weekend here lasts from December 25 to January 4.

Spain

In Spain, the winter holidays last from December 25 (Catholic Christmas) to January 6 (Epiphany).

Italy

Israel

In Israel, the European New Year is not celebrated, so December 31 and January 1 are working days. The Jewish New Year has a floating date and is celebrated in September for two days.

Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, the celebration of the European New Year is officially banned. The Islamic New Year is celebrated on the vernal equinox on March 21st.

India

Officially, the European New Year is not celebrated in India, but in some places on the streets you can find familiar attributes. New Year according to the unified national calendar is celebrated on March 22.

China

The European New Year in China is called Yuan-dan, and on January 1, the Chinese do not work. It is not customary to celebrate this holiday in the country, although you can find Christmas and New Year symbols in large shopping centers. New Year's Eve Eastern calendar comes between January 21 and February 21 and is celebrated on the first new moon. On this occasion, the Chinese rest for three days.

Japan

New Year (O-shogatsu) is still celebrated in Japan. The Japanese go on vacation on December 28 and rest until January 4.

USA

The US does not have long New Year holidays. Official holidays only on December 25-26 and January 1.

Brazil

New Year in Brazil falls in the summer (the winter months in Brazil are the hottest). Official holidays are December 25 and January 1.

SWEDEN
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany (January 6)
3. Long Friday (Friday before Easter)
4. Easter
5. Monday after Easter
6. First of May

8. Pentecost (varies)
9. National Day of Sweden (June 6)
10. Midsummer (Saturday between June 20-26)
11. All Saints' Day (Saturday between October 31-November 6)
12. Christmas (December 25)
13. Day after Christmas (December 26)
TOTAL: 13 holidays, 9 of them are church holidays.

NORWAY
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Palm Sunday(varies)
3. Maundy Thursday (varies)
4. Good Friday (varies)
5. 1st day of Easter (varies)
6. 2nd day of Easter (varies)
7. May 1 (Public holiday)
8. Constitution Day (May 17)
9. Ascension of Christ (varies)
10. 1st day of Trinity (varies)
11. 2nd day of Trinity (varies)
12. Christmas (December 24)
13. 1st day of Christmas (December 25), the 2nd day of Christmas is also celebrated.
TOTAL: Out of 13 holidays, 10 are church holidays.

FINLAND
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany or Baptism (January 6).
3. Good Friday (Friday before Easter, varies)
4. Easter (This holiday has 4 days off - from Friday to Monday)
5. Bright Monday (Monday after Easter, varies)
6. May 1 (Vapunpäivä Spring Festival, Walpurgis Night or Spring Festival, also known as May Day)
7. Ascension Ascension (40th day after Easter)
8. Trinity or Pentecost (50 days after Easter)
9. Equinox (Friday between 19 and 25 June)
10. Ivan Kupala (Saturday between June 20 and 26 (Midsummer Day is the second largest and most important holiday in Finland, second only to Christmas. Hence one of the names of the celebration - Kesyajolu, literally - "Summer Christmas").
11. All Saints' Day (1st Sunday in November)
12. Independence Day (December 6)
13. Christmas Eve (December 24)
14. Christmas (December 25)

TOTAL: Out of 15 holidays, 10 are church holidays.

FRANCE
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany (January 6)
3. Meeting of the Lord (February 2)
4. International Women's Day (March 8)
5. Labor Day, Workers' Day of Solidarity (May 1)
6. Victory Day (May 8)
7. Fat Tuesday (Last day before the beginning of the Catholic Great Lent, analogue Slavic holiday Shrovetide)
8. Easter
9. First Monday after Easter
10. Ascension (varies)
11. Holy Trinity Day (varies)
12. Music Day in France (June 21, numerous parades and concerts are held throughout the country, during which music of all genres is performed - both by professional groups and amateurs)
13. Bastille Day (July 14)
14. Assumption of the Virgin (August 15)
15. All Saints Day (November 1)
16. End of World War I (November 11)
17. Christmas (December 25)
TOTAL: Out of 17 holidays, 10 are church holidays.

BELGIUM
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Easter (varies)
3. Easter Monday (varies)
4. Labor Day (May 1)
5. Ascension of the Lord (varies)
6. Holy Trinity Day (varies)
7. Day of the Holy Spirit (varies)
8. Belgian National Day (July 21)

10. All Saints Day (November 1)
11. Armistice Day (November 11)
12. Christmas (December 25)

GERMANY (there are many holidays of individual states, days off of most states are collected here)
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany (January 6)
3. Easter (in some lands Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are declared holidays)
4. Easter (Irrigation Monday)
5. Holiday of Spring and Labor (May 1)

7. Holy Trinity Day (varies)

9. Ascension of the Mother of God (August 15)
10. German Unity Day (October 3)
11. Reformation Day (October 31)
12. All Saints Day (November 1)
13. Christmas. 1st Day of Christmas (December 25, 2nd Day of Christmas 26 December)
TOTAL: Out of 13 holidays, 10 are church holidays

SPAIN
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany (January 6)
3. Easter (Some areas celebrate Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday)
4. Labor Day (May 1)
5. Assumption of the Virgin Mary (August 15)
6. Spanish National Day (October 12)
7. All Saints Day (November 1)
8. Spanish Constitution Day (December 6)

10. Christmas (December 25)
TOTAL: Out of 10 holidays, 6 are church holidays.

ITALY
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Baptism (January 6)
3. Easter
4. Easter Monday
5. Day of Liberation from Fascism (April 25, End of World War II in Italy, 1945)
6. Labor Day (May 1)
7. Republic Day (June 2, Birth of the Italian Republic, 1946)
8. All Saints Day (November 1)
9. Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (December 8)
10. Christmas (December 25)
11. Saint Stephen's Day (December 26)
TOTAL: Out of 11 holidays, 7 are church holidays.

NETHERLANDS
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Good Friday (varies)
3. Easter
4. King's Day (April 27)
5. Memorial Day (May 4)
6. Liberation Day (May 5)
7. Ascension of the Lord (varies)
8. Holy Trinity Day (varies)
9. Christmas (December 25, December 26)
TOTAL: Out of 9 holidays, 5 church holidays

POLAND
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany (January 6)
3. Easter (First day of Easter, Second day of Easter)
4. Labor Day (May 1)
5. Third of May (In memory of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, May 3)
6. First day of Pentecost (varies)
7. Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (varies)
8. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15)
9. All Saints Day (November 1)
10. National holiday independence (November 11, in memory of gaining independence in 1918 from Russian Empire, Austria and Prussia)
11. First day of Christmas (December 25)
12. Second Day of Christmas (December 26)
TOTAL: Out of 12 holidays, 8 are church holidays.

SWITZERLAND (list public holidays in most Swiss cantons)
1. New Year (January 1)
2. St. Berthold's Day (January 2, the holiday is celebrated in most cantons of Switzerland in honor of the founder of the city of Bern)
3. Good Friday (varies)
4. Easter (varies)
5. Monday of Bright Week (the first after Easter)
6. Labor Day (May 1)
7. Ascension of the Lord (varies)
8. Pentecost and Spirits day (varies)
9. Corpus Christi (varies)
10. Swiss National Day (August 1)
11. Assumption of the Virgin Mary (August 15)
12. All Saints Day (November 1)
13. Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (December 8)
14. Christmas (December 25)
15. Boxing Day (December 26, can be called church)
TOTAL: Of the 15 holidays, 12 are church holidays.

AUSTRIA (Holidays in Austria are determined by federal or state law).
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Epiphany (January 6)
3. St. Joseph the Betrothed (March 19)
4. Easter (Good Friday and Easter Monday are celebrated)
5. Labor Day (May 1)
6. Ascension of the Lord (varies)
7. Trinity Monday (varies)
8. Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (varies)
9. Ascension of the Mother of God (August 15)
10. National Day (October 26)
11. All Saints Day (November 1)
12. Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (December 8)
13. Christmas Eve (December 24)
14. Christmas (December 25)
15. St. Stephen (December 26)
16. Saint Sylvester's Day (December 31)
TOTAL: Out of 16 holidays, 13 are church holidays

DENMARK
1. New Year (January 1)
2. Maslenitsa (7 weeks before Easter)
3. Maundy Thursday (Thursday of Holy Week, varies)
4. Good Friday (Holy Week Friday, varies)
5. Easter (In Denmark, Easter is celebrated for two days, Easter Monday)
6. Labor Day (May 1)
7. Constitution Day (June 5)
8. Great Prayer Day (4th Friday after Easter)
9. Ascension (40 days after Easter)
10. Holy Trinity Day (7 weeks after Easter, in Denmark the Trinity is celebrated for two days).
11. St. Hans, Summer solstice(June 24, the Danes call John the Baptist Saint Hans and celebrate this saint's day during the summer solstice).
12. St. Martin's Day (10)
13. Christmas Eve (December 24)
14. Christmas (December 25, in Denmark Christmas is celebrated for three days)
TOTAL: Of the 14 holidays, 11 are church holidays.

RUSSIA
1. New Year (January 1-6 and 8)
2. Christmas (January 7)
3. Defender of the Fatherland Day (February 22-23)
4. International Women's Day (March 8-10)
5. Holiday of Spring and Labor (May 1-4)
6. Victory Day (May 9-11)
7. Russia Day (June 12-15)
8. Day national unity(November 1-4)
TOTAL: Out of 8 holidays, 1 is church. Pay attention to the number of holidays for each holiday).

For the first time in history, astronomers have managed to get a clear image of a black hole. Scientists released this impressive photo on Wednesday, April 10.

First photo of a black hole

After two years of painstaking work, scientists managed to get the first photo of a black hole, which is called Sagittarius A*. It is located at the center of our galaxy and weighs four million times more than the sun.

It is also known that Sagittarius A * is located at a distance of more than 500 million trillion kilometers, which is 50 million light years from Earth.

This black hole is one of the heaviest black holes that exist. This is an absolute monster, a weightlifter, a champion of black holes in the universe,
– said Professor Heino Falke from Radboud University in the Netherlands.

For the first time in history showed the image of a black hole: video at 40:37

How scientists got the image

The image was taken thanks to a global network of observatories. Event Horizon Telescope and presented simultaneously with astronomers from a number of countries, namely the United States, Belgium, Japan, Denmark, China, Chile and Taiwan.

Scientists used eight of the most powerful telescopes on the planet, each of which observed the black hole from different parts of the world. Subsequently, the data was combined and the image of the black hole was obtained.

In addition, they were able to trace and fix the event horizon, i.e. the boundary of the black hole, which is the point of no return. Objects, getting into this area, are no longer able to go beyond it.

Who worked on this project

More than 200 scientists participated in the study, but the real star of social networks was 29-year-old Kathy Bowman. It was her photo, taken at the moment when the experts finally managed to get the final image of the black hole, that collected more than 30 thousand likes.

She was engaged in the creation of an algorithm that was supposed to convert data from several telescopes into a single image. She has been working on it since 2016 during her graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Despite her growing popularity, Bowman herself insists that not only she deserves so much attention, but all her colleagues who worked on the project.

None of us would ever have done all this on our own. Everything came together thanks to many different people with very different backgrounds. We are a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, engineers - exactly what it takes to achieve what previously seemed impossible, Bowman said in an interview with CNN.

The New Year is already very close, and the mood of many is gradually becoming non-working: after all, even adults have real holidays ahead! In this, the Russians are really lucky. And what about holidays in other countries?

New Year holidays in Russia

IN modern Russia By the New Year holidays in today's form did not come immediately. In the original version of the Labor Code, which came into force in 2002, in connection with the New Year and Christmas, three days off were provided: January 1, 2 and 7. In 2004, this normative document appeared, so to speak, a prototype of modern holidays: the days from January 1 to January 5 were declared days off, followed by a working January 6, and on January 7, Russians rested, celebrating Orthodox Christmas.

However, in the same article 112, which contained information on holidays, it was indicated that a holiday coinciding with a day off was generally subject to transfer to the next business day. Thus, in practice, January 6 also always turned out to be a non-working day, and employees of Russian enterprises received uninterrupted seven days of New Year's rest - a whole full week.

But that was not the end: in 2012, it was decided to extend the New Year holidays until January 8 - while maintaining the rule to postpone holidays that coincide with weekends. True, in the same 2012, an additional condition was introduced into Article 112 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation regarding the transfer of weekends that fall on long winter holidays. Paragraph 10 of this article explains that two days off from this period are transferred to other dates during the calendar year: usually these are May holidays. The remaining weekends during this period are postponed as usual. As a result, Russians now return to work after a long rest on January 9 or 10.

The role of the New Year holidays in the economy

An extended vacation in January really takes a toll on the country's economy this month. So, in REU them. Plekhanov, economic losses from the fact that almost the entire first half of January was non-working in 2018 amounted to 1.32 trillion rubles. This is approximately equal to 1.25% of annual GDP. Year by year, this figure tends to increase: for example, in 2017, experts estimated it at 1.2 trillion. At the same time, every day of downtime costs the Russian economy about 150 billion rubles.

The largest contributor to these losses is predictably the industrial sector. It is here that the effect of underloading production or its complete shutdown becomes most noticeable. Losses for this industry amount to about 2.5% of the total output. But retail trade partially compensates for these losses, since Russians devote a significant part of the New Year holidays to shopping and shopping. Also, growth during this period is shown by such areas of activity as the provision of catering services and accommodation in hotels and inns: domestic tourism becomes popular at this time, and in addition, the number of foreigners visiting Russia increases.

New Year holidays in other countries

I must say that the idea of ​​a full vacation in connection with the New Year holidays has not yet gained serious popularity in other states. In most countries, only a few days are allocated to celebrate the dates of the New Year and Christmas. At the same time, they are separated by working days, so that the general rhythm labor activity suffers insignificantly - well, except for the general festive atmosphere, which is quite difficult to translate into specific figures.

Interestingly, even the states that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union have different positions on this issue. Thus, in Azerbaijan, as in Russia, long-term new year holidays- non-working days will be all days from December 31 to January 6. But in Belarus public holidays only January 1 and 7 are considered, and in Kazakhstan - January 1, 2 and 7. True, the laws of these states, as in Russia, provide for the possibility of postponing days off. As a result, in Belarus, for example, in the period from January 1 to January 7, employees of enterprises expect only one working day - on Saturday, January 4, which they will work on Thursday, January 2. True, then they will have to work one more Saturday - January 11, for a formally working Monday, January 6.

Europeans also celebrate two main holidays in winter - New Year and Christmas, but keep in mind that Catholic Christmas is celebrated on other dates. So, December 25 is considered the official day of the holiday, but most often for holiday events they allocate two or even three days: so that the workers have time to meet with all relatives and friends. For example, in Germany, January 24 and 25 are allotted for this, but the practice of rest on January 25 and 26 is more common: the second day of rest is sometimes timed to coincide with another religious holiday- Stephen's day. This option is used in Hungary, Croatia, Luxembourg and many other European countries. But in Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and some other states, they rest for three days - from December 24 to 26.

After that, in most European countries, several working days follow - up to and including December 31. This day, which is usually called New Year's Eve, is a day off only in Iceland and Latvia. But on January 1, they rest almost everywhere - not only in Europe, but also in the USA, Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Japan, South Korea and other states.

Finally, another option for recreation on new year holidays- this is a full-fledged vacation, sometimes no shorter than in Russia. It is most characteristic of the southern European states, which are famous for their taste for life and love for the afternoon siesta. For example, in Italy and Spain they rest with catholic christmas before Epiphany - from December 25 to January 6. In the UK, holidays also begin on December 25, but they go to work earlier - already on January 4. In Japan, holidays are even shorter - from December 28 to January 4.

Total number of days off

Thus, the situation with the New Year holidays in Russia is not something outstanding: in some countries there are even more vacations than ours. This situation becomes even more indicative if we compare the total number of days off by country: here Russian Federation finally loses its leadership. This is largely due to the fact that our country has adopted the practice of separating church from state, which automatically translates most of the popular church holidays in the category of ordinary working days - whereas in Europe it is customary to rest on such days. As a result, according to Public Holidays Global, the overall statistics for the number of days off in 2017 looked like this:

By and large, it is quite difficult to single out any pronounced specificity by region of the world in this regard: for example, some countries in Latin America, for example, Colombia and Argentina, top the ranking in terms of the number of days off per year, while other states from the same region, for example , Brazil and Mexico are at the very bottom of the list. In fact, the fact is that this is not at all an indicator of the industriousness of the inhabitants of these countries, since the key criterion here is the total number of working hours during the year.

Number of working hours during the year

The duration of the working week in hours is perhaps the most objective criterion for assessing labor performance. The difference here can reach colossal values, which at the end of the year give very impressive figures. So, for example, in Austria the maximum duration of the working week, established at the legislative level, is 50 hours, however, in agreement with the labor collective, it can be increased to 60 hours. At the same time, literally in neighboring Germany, the average working week is about 40-48 hours, and in France - 35 hours.

Such figures, according to the Economic Cooperation Organization (OECD) for 2016, result in the following data on the total hours worked by employees of enterprises during the year.

Thus, according to official data, it is Mexican workers who can be called the most hardworking in the world: they work much more than specialists in recognized developed countries such as the United States or Japan. Obviously, two key factors played their role here: the total length of the working week, which here is about 45 hours, and the minimum number of days off per year. In addition, the short duration of the vacation, which here is only six days, leaves its mark.

It is noteworthy that the work schedule of the Russians looks very solid even against this background - despite the impressive number of holidays and the duration of the vacation established by law at 28 calendar days. Russian workers work harder than most European colleagues and employees of Asian enterprises. In October, it became known about the continuation of the discussion on reducing the length of the working week. Therefore, proposals to reduce the number of days off, primarily due to the long New Year holidays, which are expressed every year by political and public figures, predictably do not find support - neither among the population nor in the government.

Moreover, this year it was proposed to make December 31 a day off - it is well known that even in those years when this day is a working day, it is clearly not necessary to talk about full-fledged work during the day. In November, a group of deputies even submitted an appropriate bill to the State Duma for consideration, but a final decision on this issue has not yet been made. However, the Ministry of Labor noted that the current legislation gives employers fairly broad powers in this matter - they can declare the last day of the year at their enterprise a shortened working day or make it a full day off. At the same time, since in 2019 December 31 is the last working day before public holiday, the duration of the work shift of all employees should be reduced by one hour without subsequent working off.