Happy New Year, All Over Again

Tajiks are preparing for Nawruz, the celebration that marks the start of the solar year for Tajiks, Iranians, Afghans and others.

Happy New Year, All Over Again

Tajiks are preparing for Nawruz, the celebration that marks the start of the solar year for Tajiks, Iranians, Afghans and others.

Friday, 20 March, 2009
IWPR

IWPR

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Khalil Qoimzada reports on the traditional, and complex, preparations that need to be made to get the festivities under way.





At an official level, a series of formal and not-so-formal events have been planned, while out in the countryside, people will engage in old customs like jumping over fires and prepare the traditional seven dishes whose names begin with “S”.



He discovered that in the Soviet period, the Communist authorities banned Nawruz because they thought, wrongly, it was a religious holiday, but then relented.



Tajiks now celebrate on both December 31 and at Nauruz, with a holiday on March 20-22.

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