Navruz: the Central Asian spring festival

Navruz (from Persian nav + ruz, "new day") is a 3,000-year-old spring-equinox celebration inherited from Zoroastrian Persia and preserved by nearly every Central Asian culture. It's Uzbekistan's largest secular festival — a UNESCO Intangible Heritage element.

When: 21 March, when the sun crosses the celestial equator. Public holidays typically extend 21–23 March.

Signature traditions:

• Sumalak — a ceremonial wheat-germ pudding cooked overnight in giant cauldrons by neighbourhood women who take shifts stirring. The stirring takes 24 hours; the result is a dense, sweet, brown paste eaten in tiny portions. Symbolises the return of life after winter.

• Kupkari (also called buzkashi in Tajik) — a rough equestrian game where horsemen compete to grab a headless goat carcass and carry it across a goal line. Practiced in the Fergana Valley, Kashkadarya and the Nurata mountains. Not for the squeamish, but a genuine cultural experience.

• Family visits — extensive travel between relatives' homes. All roads busy 21–23 March.

• Haft-sin table — traditionally seven items starting with the letter S in Persian (sumalak, apple, silver coin, sprouted grass, garlic, vinegar, sumac). Less strictly observed in Uzbekistan than in Iran but still common.

Public events: - Samarkand's Registan hosts an official concert and folk-music performance in the evening of the 21st. - Tashkent's Alisher Navoi Park has family-friendly stage events all day. - Nearly every town has a bazaar-adjacent public festivity.

Travel implications: - All government offices closed 21–22 March. - Domestic hotel and train prices spike ~30% around Navruz. - Most museums and monuments stay open but check hours. - Great time to visit for cultural depth, harder time for efficient sightseeing.