Novruz 2008 in Ganja

This year Mike and I had the chance to celebrate Novruz both in Ganja and in Mingechevir. We were lucky we saw anything at all since none of the Azeris we knew had any idea when events were happening in either town. This year the "official" Novruz holiday was on Thursday, March 20th, the vernal equinox. However the Tuesday before was the final Tuesday in the Novruz weekly parties celebrating the 4 elements: earth, wind, fire and water. So essentially the entire week was one big spring "new year" celebration. True to form and of course looking ahead to his upcoming election in the fall, Ilham gave the country 9 days off. So officially from Thursday the 20th-28th were free. However since the 18th and 19th were big party days too, they were essentially days off as well. I realy like Novruz because of its significance to the people. It is one of the few tastes of the ancient culture even before Islam came to this region. Most all of the other holidays here, with the exception of Ramadan and Qurban are political in nature. Under Soviet rule I was told that Azeris were not allowed to celebrate Novruz, so its come back since with quite a lot of fervor. This year Ganja went all out especially with the city decorations and even a 12 meter piece (Hunk?) of Baklava. The Baklava here is not like the kind made in Greece and Turkey. Its similar but I find it sweeter and gooier.

Mike came to town on Tuesday to help me out with my Library opening on Wednesday. I had found out that day from Naile that Wednesday was also going to be the big day for Novruz events in Ganja. No one realy knew for sure when everything was going to happen, for once it wasn't just Mike and I who were out of the loop, so Naile called up the city government to confirm. So on Tuesday night also a big party night Mike and I strolled through the city to get a glimpse of all the festivity preparations. Here are some pictures that Mike took. There was a big tent set up with the famous Baklava and the cops guarding it let us take a peak inside but no pictures until the next morning! So we figured we'd have to arrive early to get there before the throngs of people started eating all the Baklava. According to Naile and her government connections the festivities were to begin at 11:00. We decided to try to be there an hour early to try to get some good pictures of all the activity. When we arrived just after 10 the roads downtown had already been closed and the central square in front of the exectutive power building (the big ugly one in all the pictures) was already very full. The Baklava was unmasked for all to see, quite impressive. A guy on a cherry picker was taking arial views of it and there were still a lot of police milling around quasi guarding it. The makings of a giant bonfire were on center stage, and as we watched men kept dousing the wood with lighter fluid. I think the logs were pretty well saturated by the time they got around to lighting it.

All around the square there were different 'booths' with different organizations and handicrafts. There were also boxers, wrestlers and Taekwondo fighters. Several musical ensembles were arranged in different areas around the square including a marching band type group. A couple of dance schools performed various traditional dances. Then around 11 o'clock a group of 4 men on horseback came riding in and circling the soon-to-be bonfire. I didn't think it was a particularly good idea to have a bunch of horses walking around an inferno, But they didn't seem to see anything wrong with it as you will note from the first picture.

The fire was lit a few minutes later and it was intense. Because of all the gas the logs practicaly incinerated in about 10 minutes. The blaze was incredibly hot- and it was a breezy day so staying to close to the blaze was not a safe idea but the masses came in close, ashes, soot, flames and all. I didn't think being in the midst of a pack of people around a giant blaze was very smart so I moved away to a safe distance. Mike, always more concerned about getting the perfect picture over personal safety, stayed in for some photo-ops.

After the fire we went over to see what was going on with the Baklava. By now the mayor and his contingency had arrived and they were serving it up. The police had organized themselves in a human wall, linked arm and arm around the table to barracade the masses from swarming the Baklava. This had little effect and the people shoved through breaking the police ranks and rushed the Baklava. Some even jumped up on the table and several were shoving huge chunks into grocery bags they had brought. A couple of old women got carted off by the police. It was mass chaos and incredible to watch. We were shocked and amused. I mean- its just Baklava! You can make it at home. We didn't think it was worth pushing and shoving to get in for a piece since we don't really like it that much anyway so we made a quick exit and went to the restaurant for some breakfast/lunch to mull over what we had just witnessed.