Nauriz, The Festival of Spring

by Eric

Today I spent some time enjoying the Nauriz (New Year) celebration festivities. After meeting up with Bayan, her youngest brother, Karla, Ben, Agnes, and Joel, we walked through the area where Yurts were setup and ate some free food – bourzaki (fried bread balls) and a concoction of seven ingredients. This seven-ingredient concoction can only be made and served on this day each year or it is believed that you will experience bad luck for the year. Though this concoction can be made with any combination of seven ingredients, the one that I drank was milk-based and contained beef, rice, raisins, a vegetable and three other ingredients.

Due to the cold temperatures, we walked to the Istanbul and drank tea for about 45 minutes while we waited for the rest of the yurts to be setup and for the music entertainment to begin. When we walked back over to the yurts, much to my surprise we were invited into one. Apparently Bayan had arranged for us to be invited into a yurt to eat and drink traditional foods. This yurt was owned by her university, and the head of the university welcomed us to join him to celebrate. As we walked into the yurt, which resembles a teepee, we found several heaters, which I was not expecting to see, and multiple tables and chairs with a lot of food. The host, who is rumored to be one of the most respected men in Kazakhstan, started by thanking all of us for coming and asked us to enjoy the food and drink. He then said it was customary for each person to do a toast. He asked if we wanted vodka, cognac, or milk. Most of us opted for the cognac since Kazakhstan cognac is rumored to be quite tasty. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of drinking before noon, but figured that since this was a very special occasion, it would be okay. After the toast, Ben and I proceeded to sip our cognac and wait for the next toast. It was at this point that our host informed us that it was rude not to drink the entire shot of cognac…so we obliged. It wasn’t more than 15 seconds later that he filled our glasses with more cognac. Again a toast was made, and we drank our cognac. This happened two more times, thus we ended up having four shots of cognac in a 20 minute period. Unfortunately it wasn’t until our last shot that we got wise and suggested that multiple people toast before we drink. Had Ben not made this suggestion, we would have had 7 shots of cognac!

I could have stayed in the yurt for an hour, enjoying the food and drink, but they mentioned that as soon as we were to leave, more people would come in. It is customary on this day that many people would be invited to share in the food in their yurt. This is based on a tradition where families would invite their friends and relatives to enjoy food and drink. Nowadays the yurts at this festival tend to be owned by organizations and businesses.

After we left the yurt, we watched the music entertainment, complete with dombras, singing, and dancing. The highlight of the show was the skit performed by the university. Again, the host of the yurt was on stage with about 20 university students/faculty in costumes. They presented a skit containing 4-5 songs. The skit showed the traditional way that a couple was engaged and married. They started off by the man telling his friends and family that he was going to be engaged to a woman from a local village. Next we saw the woman, who was just proposed to, wearing a tall hat and long earrings, which signifies that she is engaged. Next we saw that they were married and a song was sung to signify this. This was followed by a song showing that the parents supported the marriage. This skit didn’t go through the actual proposal and marriage, but more of the traditions behind it, complete with traditional costumes and music.

After the skit ended, we walked over to purchase some kabobs on the way home. By this time it had been raining for about 30 minutes, thus we were cold and wet. It is amazing how many people were out in the cold celebrating this day. The kabobs that we had were very fatty, but for the price - $5, you can’t complain too much.