Millions of people celebrate the start of New Banksy’s white-painted Persian New Year motif in London

Millions of people around the world celebrated the beginning of the Persian New Year of Norus.

The festival marks the beginning of spring and falls annually on March 20 or 21, when day and night are of equal length. In Europe, New Year’s celebrations started early Wednesday morning. According to the Iranian and Afghan calendar, the year begins in 1403.

Norus is celebrated in Central, West and South Asia, such as Iran, Afghanistan and the Kurdish regions, as well as by millions of people around the world. In Iran the festival is overshadowed by a serious economic crisis. There have been no public festivals in Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power in August 2021. Although the Islamists tolerate private celebrations, they regard Norus as a custom of the infidels.

Iranian head of state Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also addressed the country’s economic problems in his New Year’s speech. The Iranian economy is under pressure from the strict international sanctions imposed in recent decades, mainly due to its controversial nuclear program and human rights violations.

For many, the thousands-year-old festival is considered the most beautiful holiday of the entire year. Traditionally, people decorate a table with seven meaningful things, all of which start with the letter “S” in the Persian language Farsi. On the “Haft Sin” table there are coins, apples, garlic and grass. Gifts are also exchanged and literary classics are read. (saw/sda/dpa)