As you may or may not know, Nowruz is the Persian Year.
As you probably don’t know unless you’re Persian, it is also the oldest continuously celebrated holiday of all humankind, pretty cool right? Today, Nowruz is celebrated all across what used to be the Persian empire, all the way from Azerbaijan to Central Asia. This post is about my experience of Nowruz in Tajikistan.
My Iranian conversation partner Saodat told me that while in Iran Nowruz tends to be a family holiday, in Tajikistan it is more of a public holiday. In my experience, this has been true. My host family didn’t do anything to celebrate Nowruz in their home, however that by no means means that it was not celebrated. Here I will describe some of the ways I celebrated Nowruz and saw Nowruz being celebrated in Tajikistan.
A ceremony: At American Councils, where I study, we commemorated Nowruz with a huge Nowruz ceremony, in which I was chosen to be what Iranians call “mojri” Tajiks call “baranda” and what probably in English roughly translates to Master of Ceremonies. Our Nowruz party consisted of different acts of both Americans and Tajiks who study here (American Councils also runs exchange programs for Tajik students), in which we did traditional dances, played traditional Nowruz games such as wrestling and tug of war, and recited poetry. As the MC, I had to some sort of a poem between every act, so if you’re ever interested in hearing someone recite Nowruz poetry in Persian, hit me up. I also shared the jeesh story (see earlier post) with the crowd who seemed to enjoy it a lot.
Haft Seen / Shin: Another one of my jobs as MC was presenting the “haft seen” table. Many traditional Persian holidays feature ceremonial plates and tables, each of which is full of symbolic items. To all my Jews out there, surprise surprise, the seder plate was based off of the haft seen.
In Persian, haft means seven and seen is a letter of the alphabet, so there are seven things on the haft seen all of which begin with the letter seen: sir (garlic, symbol of health), sekeh (coins, symbol of blessing, sanjed (a type of dried fruit, symbol of love), samanu (see below, a symbol of abundance), sib (apple, a symbol of health), and samagh (sumac, a symbol of the flavor of life). There are also other things which don’t begin with sin, like a mirror (symbol of light and cleanliness), an egg (symbol of life), a goldfish (symbol of movement and flow), and plants and flowers (a symbol of life).
Interestingly, historically there was a variation of the haft seen called the ‘haft shin’ which is basically the same concept with 7 things that begin with a different letter (shin, not sin). The haft shin variant is more common in Tajikistan, but not as much in Iran (at least publicly) because of its inclusion of sharob (wine).
Preparation of Sumalak / Samanu: Another tradition I found particularly awesome is the making of sumalak (which Iranians call samanu). Sumalak is a paste made of wheat that is traditionally eaten around Nowruz. In Tajikistan, it is a tradition that the woman from each neighborhood will gather together and cook a big pot of sumalak outside, which they then give out to everyone in the community. Cooking sumalak takes an entire day, so women from around the community will all gather around the pot and take turns watching it and stirring it as it simmers. It’s a great time for gossip and community building.
Bocha: Over the week we got off of school for Nowruz, I travelled to the northern city of Khujand (highly recommend traveling there if you get the chance) and in Khujand I saw another Nowruz tradition which I think is unique to Tajikistan (although Iranians reading this, let me know if you do it in Iran as well, I’d love to know). This tradition, which I think is called ‘bocha’, is where young boys will all hold on to the edges of a blanket and carry it around their neighborhood asking for candy. It is sort of like halloween, except unfortunately only boys are involved, and fortunately, all the kids have one blanket of candy which they share, rather than each of them having their own basket. They also have a rhyme that they sing when they collect it, which you can see below.
Buzkashi: Buzkashi (literal translation: the pulling of goat) is something you have to see to believe. It is a traditional Central Asian sport played primarily in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which I can probably best explain to Americans as follows: It is like soccer. Except the ball is a stuffed goat. And the players are on horses. And there are hundreds of them. There is no official Buzkashi league here, but what tends to happen is wealthy people will often host games around Nowruz, and people from around the region will come and compete for prizes which can range from anything from a goat to a brand new car, depending on how rich the host is.
Atlas: Atlas one of the traditional fabrics of Tajikistan, and around Nowruz, you’ll be hard pressed to find a woman on the street who isn’t wearing it. In my time here, I have seen atlas scarves, atlas shoes, traditional atlas dresses with loose atlas pants under them, and even custom made European style atlas dresses. For the nowruz party, my host family graciously lent me one of my host sisters traditional atlas tresses and a traditional hat (toughi) to wear. See below for pictures.
I hoped you enjoyed hearing about my experience of Nowruz. I’d love to hear what you think or about your own experiences in the comments or by email.
See you later / до втсечи / بعد تا
-Lindsay / Линдси / لینزی
As you probably don’t know unless you’re Persian, it is also the oldest continuously celebrated holiday of all humankind, pretty cool right? Today, Nowruz is celebrated all across what used to be the Persian empire, all the way from Azerbaijan to Central Asia. This post is about my experience of Nowruz in Tajikistan.
My Iranian conversation partner Saodat told me that while in Iran Nowruz tends to be a family holiday, in Tajikistan it is more of a public holiday. In my experience, this has been true. My host family didn’t do anything to celebrate Nowruz in their home, however that by no means means that it was not celebrated. Here I will describe some of the ways I celebrated Nowruz and saw Nowruz being celebrated in Tajikistan.
A ceremony: At American Councils, where I study, we commemorated Nowruz with a huge Nowruz ceremony, in which I was chosen to be what Iranians call “mojri” Tajiks call “baranda” and what probably in English roughly translates to Master of Ceremonies. Our Nowruz party consisted of different acts of both Americans and Tajiks who study here (American Councils also runs exchange programs for Tajik students), in which we did traditional dances, played traditional Nowruz games such as wrestling and tug of war, and recited poetry. As the MC, I had to some sort of a poem between every act, so if you’re ever interested in hearing someone recite Nowruz poetry in Persian, hit me up. I also shared the jeesh story (see earlier post) with the crowd who seemed to enjoy it a lot.
Haft Seen / Shin: Another one of my jobs as MC was presenting the “haft seen” table. Many traditional Persian holidays feature ceremonial plates and tables, each of which is full of symbolic items. To all my Jews out there, surprise surprise, the seder plate was based off of the haft seen.
In Persian, haft means seven and seen is a letter of the alphabet, so there are seven things on the haft seen all of which begin with the letter seen: sir (garlic, symbol of health), sekeh (coins, symbol of blessing, sanjed (a type of dried fruit, symbol of love), samanu (see below, a symbol of abundance), sib (apple, a symbol of health), and samagh (sumac, a symbol of the flavor of life). There are also other things which don’t begin with sin, like a mirror (symbol of light and cleanliness), an egg (symbol of life), a goldfish (symbol of movement and flow), and plants and flowers (a symbol of life).
Interestingly, historically there was a variation of the haft seen called the ‘haft shin’ which is basically the same concept with 7 things that begin with a different letter (shin, not sin). The haft shin variant is more common in Tajikistan, but not as much in Iran (at least publicly) because of its inclusion of sharob (wine).
Preparation of Sumalak / Samanu: Another tradition I found particularly awesome is the making of sumalak (which Iranians call samanu). Sumalak is a paste made of wheat that is traditionally eaten around Nowruz. In Tajikistan, it is a tradition that the woman from each neighborhood will gather together and cook a big pot of sumalak outside, which they then give out to everyone in the community. Cooking sumalak takes an entire day, so women from around the community will all gather around the pot and take turns watching it and stirring it as it simmers. It’s a great time for gossip and community building.
Bocha: Over the week we got off of school for Nowruz, I travelled to the northern city of Khujand (highly recommend traveling there if you get the chance) and in Khujand I saw another Nowruz tradition which I think is unique to Tajikistan (although Iranians reading this, let me know if you do it in Iran as well, I’d love to know). This tradition, which I think is called ‘bocha’, is where young boys will all hold on to the edges of a blanket and carry it around their neighborhood asking for candy. It is sort of like halloween, except unfortunately only boys are involved, and fortunately, all the kids have one blanket of candy which they share, rather than each of them having their own basket. They also have a rhyme that they sing when they collect it, which you can see below.
Buzkashi: Buzkashi (literal translation: the pulling of goat) is something you have to see to believe. It is a traditional Central Asian sport played primarily in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which I can probably best explain to Americans as follows: It is like soccer. Except the ball is a stuffed goat. And the players are on horses. And there are hundreds of them. There is no official Buzkashi league here, but what tends to happen is wealthy people will often host games around Nowruz, and people from around the region will come and compete for prizes which can range from anything from a goat to a brand new car, depending on how rich the host is.
Atlas: Atlas one of the traditional fabrics of Tajikistan, and around Nowruz, you’ll be hard pressed to find a woman on the street who isn’t wearing it. In my time here, I have seen atlas scarves, atlas shoes, traditional atlas dresses with loose atlas pants under them, and even custom made European style atlas dresses. For the nowruz party, my host family graciously lent me one of my host sisters traditional atlas tresses and a traditional hat (toughi) to wear. See below for pictures.
I hoped you enjoyed hearing about my experience of Nowruz. I’d love to hear what you think or about your own experiences in the comments or by email.
See you later / до втсечи / بعد تا
-Lindsay / Линдси / لینزی
buzkashi
a haft shin from Khujand
me wearing atlas as the mojri
our nowruz party
The bocha song
