New Year’s Day of Uzbekistan

  In Uzbekistan, New Year’s Day is called “Navruz,” which means “New Day.” The ancient popular holiday Navruz (Navruz Bairam) is celebrated on March 21st during the Spring Equinox. Navruz has been celebrated for at least 3,000 years and is deeply rooted in the rituals and traditions of the Zoroastrian religion. We also celebrate the western New Year, so we have two “New Year’s” holidays in our country. Students in school, especially, wait for these holidays, as they have short vacations on these days. I will explain more about our traditional “New Year’s Day,” because we celebrate the western one similar to other people around the world.

  Navruz is a holiday celebrating Nature’s awakening and the beginning of sowing, and it has retained in its rituals some features of Zoroastrianism. Every spring, huge celebrations and festive fairs are arranged in the agricultural oases of ancient Uzbekistan. Even today, following the old traditions, “baursak,” a type of shortbread, and the ritual dish “sumalak” are cooked in homes. Usually, after the festival the fieldwork begins, and it has also been accompanied with ceremonies in the past. For instance, prior to going to the fields, the horns and necks of oxen would be oiled. The oldest and most respected member of the community would start to plow the first furrow. After our independence, the festival took on a new scope and depth; it has become a holiday of friendship, unity and fraternity for all nationalities living in the country. It is a holiday which embodies sacred feelings and calls people to show kindness and mercy. Today, colorful dramatized performances reveal the philosophical and poetic significance of Navruz and its role in my people’s history.

  There are songs and dances devoted to the pre-Islamic festival Navruz, which takes place on the Spring Equinox. In addition to the all-night ritual of stirring a large caldron to make “sumaliak” (a special dish made from seven grains) festivities also include “suskhotin,” a dance asking for rain, and “mazhnun tal” a dance by girls wearing fluffy willow buds woven into braids in their hair. During Navruz our government organizes large concerts in the different cities of our republic. You can see a lot of people walking around together and having a good time the whole day long.

Sugar cane was discovered on the day of Navruz, and it turned out to taste deliciously sweet. People make sugar from it. Since that time, people have followed the custom of presenting sweets to each other.

  Before the coming of Islam, Navruz was considered as the main holiday of the Zoroastrian religion. This day of the Winter Equinox was considered as the first calendar day of the solar year, when Nature wakes up from a long winter sleep and every living being comes alive again. According to the legends, not only Nature came alive again, but the souls of the dead returned to Earth. On that date, when the duration of the day and night are equal, the angels used to descend from Heaven.

  On the sixth day of the month, the Great Navruz would usually come. According to one legend, on that day Allah finished the creation of the world. On that day he also created Saturn and the happiest hours of Navruz were “the time of Saturn,” when Allah gave the inhabitants of the earth happiness and blessings. The Iranian people called that day the Day of Hopes – “Rusi umed.”

  There is one more tradition connected with Navruz. That day is considered as the day of Khurazo, the day of the “Water Angel.” People splash water on one another, thus expressing their wish for more water for irrigation and their hope for a good harvest. In the morning, people bathe in the reservoirs and sprinkle each other with water, as if cleaning the smoke and ashes from their bodies that had accumulated from the fires that had been kept lit in their homes during the winter. Water and fresh air were used for this cleaning and also for banishing diseases. Discussing this ritual the greatest scientist and thinker of the East Beruni gave an example from the life of the Prophet's companions. The companions would say: "A man during the year will be healthy if he awakes before dawn on the day of Navruz, silently tastes sugar and dabs the body with olive oil.” Navruz is a symbolic holiday, a bit of living history embodying century-old customs and traditions. During the days of Navruz the notions of charity and mercy acquire special meaning and content.