...Novruz...

This week everyone in Azerbaijan is on leave. The reason is that the country is continuing to celebrate Novruz. Novruz has a very ancient Zoroastrian origin. We celebrate the arrival of spring, arrival of new life and new beginning.Starting four weeks in advance of Novruz each Tuesday we celebrate Tuesday of Wind, Tuesday of Water, Tuesday of Fire and Tuesday of Earth. Evening of 20th of March and 21st of March are actual Novruz celebration days. 20th of March falls on the spring equinox, the first day of spring. At the time of the equinox, the sun is observed to be directly over the equator, and the north and south poles of the Earth lie along the solar terminator; sunlight is evenly divided between the north and south hemispheres. No matter which political regime Azerbaijan always celebrated Novruz. We have many traditions connected with Novruz such as jumping over fire (to drop past year troubles into the fire), prepare special Novruz deserts (to energize the batteries of the body that get exhausted during cold winter) and visiting the families and relatives. Usually we call March crazy…since it is impossible to guess the weather during this special month. Special because everybody is looking forward to warmer weather and spring and appreciates every extra sun light we receive. March is playing with people offering different weather every day…This year we are lucky as the weather during Novruz is great. Since the holidays are long everyone is either in the regions or abroad traveling and having a good time. I don’t have special pictures unfortunately…this is the picture of Novruz pastries and growing wheat "səməni" (also a must thing to have for Novruz in every household)… Happy Spring, everyone!!!