Chaharchanbe-Souri

On the occasion of this festival, lights and decorations are installed in major Iranian cities, and fires are lit in public squares. The lights and the fire symbolize the hope of enlightenment and radiant happiness for the coming year.

Concretely, people bring together more or less large piles of wood, to ignite them and jump over the flames, pronouncing the sentence: “Zardi-yé man az to; sorkhi-yé to az man” ( زردی من از تو، سرخی تو از من) which literally means: "my [color] yellow for you, your [color] red for me" (red is the color of fire), that is to say, figuratively, "I give you my pallor — or my illness — I take your strength — your health".

This is the occasion for a large popular gathering where Iranians go out into the public space (streets and parks) and treat themselves to sweets known as Adjile Moshkel Gosha (a mixture of hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts, pistachios, raisins and dried mulberries) to glorify the health and happiness of the past year. Firecrackers are thrown in the streets.

According to tradition, the spirits of the ancestors visit the living on the last days of the year, and many children surround themselves with sheets, thus symbolically reenacting the visits of the dead. They also run around the streets banging on boxes and pots and knocking on doors to play tricks on people. This ritual is called qashogh-zany (literally: tapping the spoon) and symbolizes driving away the last unlucky Wednesday of the year.

There are several other traditions on this night, including the rituals of Kouze Chekastan ( کوزه شکستن), during which earthen jars are broken which symbolically contain someone's bad fortune, Fal-gouch (فال‌گوش) or the art of divination by listening to the conversations of passers-by and the ritual of Guéré-gochâyi (گره‌گشایی), tie a knot in a handkerchief or fabric and ask the first passer-by to untie it in order to ward off someone's bad luck