Environment Day in Ukraine, Volunteer Appreciation Day, International Circus Day. What else can be celebrated on April 20
Kyiv • UNN
The full-scale Russian invasion has changed the meaning of this event, as the restoration of Ukraine's environment after Russian war crimes may take many years and require significant funds.
Today, on the third Saturday of April, nature lovers, ecologists, and people whose work is related to environmental protection can join various events on the occasion of the Environment Day of Ukraine, UNN writes.
The event was launched in 1999. In peacetime, the main task was to celebrate it with concrete deeds: planting trees, cleaning up garbage, cleaning water bodies, etc.
The full-scale Russian invasion has changed the meaning of this event, because restoring Ukraine's environment after Russian war crimes may take many years and require significant funds. And it's not just the environmental disaster in southern Ukraine caused by the enemy's explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
The total amount of damage caused to the Ukrainian environment by Russian aggression already exceeds UAH 2.2 trillion. More than half of this damage is caused by air, land and water pollution. Currently, there are over 172,000 square kilometers of potentially mined areas in Ukraine.
April 20 is Volunteer Appreciation Day.
The volunteer movement originated in France in 1920, when young people organized the voluntary restoration of farms destroyed during the First World War .
In Ukraine, the volunteer movement was launched in the 1990s, and it showed its true strength in the first hours of Russian aggression.
Ukrainian volunteers have proven that they are able to unite, organize and help and solve extremely difficult tasks to provide assistance to those in need.
Thousands of episodes of Ukrainian volunteers helping to evacuate people and animals, delivering food and essential items to settlements under fire or occupation will forever remain in the history of not only the Ukrainian but also the global volunteer movement.
Today, fans of science fiction can join the International Cli-Fi Day.
Climate fiction is a separate area of science fiction whose plots are based on climate change, which can lead to a significant change in the face of our planet and even its death.
Literary works and feature films about global warming made Cli-Fi especially popular at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.
International Circus Day is celebrated on the third Saturday of April.
The event was launched by the World Federation of Circuses in 2010.
The circus appeared in Ancient Rome, but it was a place of racing and gladiatorial battles, which is different from today's idea of the circus. Modern circus art was founded by the Englishman Philip Astley in the late 18th century. Astley decided to demonstrate tricks on horseback in the circus arena.
Nowadays, circus art has a much broader definition: it includes illusionism, acrobatics, clowning, pantomime, etc.
According to the church calendar, today is the Feast of the Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
According to legend, in the 7th century, during the siege of Constantinople, Patriarch Sergius took the robe of the Mother of God from the Church of Vlachernae, walked around the city with it, and dipped it into the Bosphorus Strait. After that, a miracle happened-a storm arose and all the enemy ships sank.
On April 20, Maria, Oleksandr, Fedir, and Stanislav celebrate their name days.
