Наурыз

The name and the date

The word “Nauryz” is Persian: “nau” (“new”) and “ruz” (“day”), that is “a new day”. Kazakhs also call the holiday “Ulystyn uly kuni” (“the great day of the people”), “Ulys kuni”, “Zhyl basy” (“the beginning of the year”). “Ulys” here means the people, the country, the common community, hence the main wish of the holiday: “Ulys on bolsyn!”. Nauryz falls on the spring equinox, when day and night are equal: astronomically it is 20–21 March. In Kazakhstan 21, 22 and 23 March are non-working days.

How the year began for steppe dwellers

Nomads had no single calendar date: ethnographers write that the holiday was marked “from February to April” — depending on the climate and when nature revived in the steppe. What mattered was not a day in the calendar but the event itself — the end of winter, when the livestock survived, the snow melted and people could breathe out. So Nauryz is a holiday of hope: “we have survived the winter and are entering a new cycle”. It could also last long: by contemporaries’ accounts, up to a week or more.

Preparation: a clean home and soul

For the holiday the house, yard and pen were cleaned, springs were cleared (“bulak kozin ashu”), trees were planted, new or clean clothes were put on. It was believed the year should be met clean both in body and in thought. A separate important layer is reconciliation: in these days grievances and debts were forgiven, elders reconciled the quarrelling, helped those in need, and the rich, according to ethnographers, slaughtered livestock and gave meat with grain to poor households. Nauryz is a holiday when no one should be left without a table.

Nauryz kozhe

The main dish of the holiday is nauryz kozhe, a thick soup. It is cooked from at least seven components: by the most popular version — water, meat, salt, fat, grain (millet, barley or wheat), milk or ayran and kurt (dried curd cheese). But there is no strict “list of seven”: sources differ — some add rice, millet, others fruit and a sheet of fat. What is sacred is the principle, not a specific set: seven different components (or an odd number) that gather the basic blessings — water, grain, meat, milk. White foods — milk, ayran, kurt — are a symbol of goodness and warmth.

Whoever comes to the house gets a portion; as described, a part was also set aside for those who could not come — the “sybaga” of an absent relative. In many houses people ate the kozhe, spoke wishes, and the eldest read a bata.

Korisu and good wishes

When meeting in the days of the holiday people greet each other in a special way — “korisu”: they embrace, exchange wishes and ask forgiveness for grievances. The main formulas: “Ulys on bolsyn, ak mol bolsyn!” (“May the year be fortunate, may there be much white — abundance, milk!”), “Ulystyn uly kuni kutty bolsyn!”, “Nauryz meiramy kutty bolsyn!”, “Zhyl kutty bolsyn!”. The word “ak” here is “white”: milk and dairy products, hence abundance and goodness.

Games and merriment

By day games were held: kokpar, audaryspak, kyz kuu (“catch the girl”), kures, baiga, the altybakan swing, and in the evening poetic contests and aitys, and at night bonfires. So the holiday united everyone: the young competed, the elders judged and blessed, the children played. Today, in the days of Nauryz, yurts are set up in squares, and fairs, concerts and national games are held for the whole town or village.

The ban and the revival

In Soviet times Nauryz was not allowed to be celebrated openly for almost sixty years — the holiday was considered religious or a “relic”; it was greeted quietly, in the family, under the guise of ordinary guests. Historians argue whether there was an official document banning it, but the practice of suppression itself is not disputed. The revival began in 1988: the holiday was allowed in several towns and districts, in 1989 it took place across all regions, and in 1991 a decree on the people’s spring festival was issued. Today it is a public holiday.

Nauryz is recognised beyond Kazakhstan too: UNESCO inscribed it on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a shared element of several countries, and in 2010 the UN declared 21 March the International Day of Nowruz.

Interesting facts

Glossary

Ұлыс

The people, the country, the common community.

Ұлыстың ұлы күні

“The great day of the people”: the first day of the year by the folk calendar.

Наурыз көже

A ritual soup from at least seven components.

Көрісу

A ritual greeting: embrace, wishes, a plea for forgiveness.

Бата

An elder’s blessing.

Жоралғы

A ritual treat, a sign of coming well-being.

Алтыбақан

A large swing, the young people’s favourite pastime at Nauryz.

Сыбаға

A share at a common meal, including for someone absent.

Құрт

Dried balls of curd cheese.

Айран

A fermented milk drink; a symbol of the white — goodness and abundance.