Gilgit Baltistan Welcomes Spring with a centuries-old Festival.
Gilgit Baltistan residents are celebrating the biggest spring festival of Nouroz on Thursday (21st March) as the two-day Traditional Tukhm Rezi Festival.
Basically, March 21st is the 1st hamal month, which is the 1st month of the natural year, so the people of Gilgit Baltistan celebrate the day as the birthday of the Earth.
The day marks the beginning of the new year in the Persian calendar.
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| Traditional Foods in Nouroz |
Nouroz is also celebrated in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Afghanistan as a national event.
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| Nouroz Celebration |
The people of Gilgit Baltistan have been celebrating this festival for centuries.
The main purpose of celebrating the day is to start a new life after a harsh winter, and people pray for a successful and prosperous year ahead
. The inaugural ceremony of the festival was held in the Yasin Valley of Ghizer, where the elderly, women, children, and elected members of the area participated.
The participants repair their water channel symbolically to start a new agriculture season and distribute food and dance to traditional music.
Tukham Rezi is a 900-year-old festival celebrated annually in the Yasin Valley, which is located in the district of Ghizer. Gilgit Baltistan is Gilgit-Baltistan.
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| Traditional Foods |
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| Cake Cutting Ceremony |
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| Traditional Food ( Ishpiri ) |
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| Nouroz Festival Celebration |
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| Local Games on Nouroz |
The festival will be observed in Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar, Ghizer, Astore, Skardu, and Ghanche Districts, with a focus on Shia and Ismaili communities. this day, the Government of Gilgit Baltistan announces an official holiday. Local games and traditional musical programs are organized and specialized dishes are also prepared and distributed to friends and relatives.
The most attractive feature of Nouroz is "CHI, CHI", a traditional get-together of the elderly, women, and children in every village.
The highlight of these functions is that a newborn dressed in new clothes is placed on the shoulders of an elder who then carries the baby for some distance.
In Ghizer and Hunza, there are some changes, like the hair of newborn babies is cut, and the breaking of pained eggs by boys, where the competitor brings an egg to the ceremony, where they try to break an egg with an egg. Each time the egg was broken, the winner was given an egg by the loser.
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