Persian New Year
UTC (+1) Thursday March 20, 2025, 10:01:30 AM (Berlin, Vienna)
Nowruz is one of the oldest festivals that exist: Its origins seem to be in debate, but seems to have been part of Zoroastrianism. It was first recorded in ancient Pahlavi texts, over 2000 years ago.
It’s a spring festival that celebrates the coming of the new year after winter.
It is celebrated inside and outside of Persia with ancient rites, joyful and full of hope.
Imagine a combination of Christmas and Easter: Houses will be cleaned from top to bottom and decorated with eggs, flowers and twigs indicating the coming of spring and hopes for plentiful harvests.
The so-called ‘sofre-e haft sin‘, a fine cloth decorated in a central place of a house or home, showing more decoration and seven (‘haft‘) special things symbolising wishes for a good year ahead, whose names each start with the letter ‘sin’ of the Persian alphabet.
People buy new clothes and little gifts.
The festival starts actually two days before the turning of the new year, the day called “chaharshanb-e suri”:
The last Wednesday before the new year, when people gather in the streets, light small bonfires and jump over them, saying proverbs: This custom meant to leave sorrow and unhappiness to the fire and let it transfer new energy to the jumping person.
After the turning of the new year for two weeks people visit each other, wearing their new clothes and bearing gifts, the rounds starting with the young visiting the older family members first. Sweets, fruit, and tea are common as repasts – and dancing is a matter of course.
Enjoy!