Novruz festival...
On March 19, 2010 the concert hall at hostel 2, hosted a festival, where students from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan presented their cultural traditions to Belgorodians. The party was centered around Novruz festival, personifying spring and awakening of nature in the East. On the stage you could see not only national costumes and performance, carefully prepared by the students, but to listen about the history of the festival with deep roots from the past.
The students themselves were telling about the history of the festival. The audience got to know that the festival is celebrated in some Muslim countries – Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic and others and for some of them it is a public holiday.
It is interesting that the word “Navruz” itself originates from ancient Persian and is translated as “New day”. It is celebrated on the same days with vernal equinox on March 21 and lasts several days.
According to ancient tradition, people must meet this holiday , with houses, streets and towns cleaned. And the main dish during the celebration is flatbread baked from wheat, barley, rice and maize.
The other important attribute of the festival is music, and of course, the dutar, a musical instrument, without which no celebration in Middle Asia can happen. Its sound resembles the guitar, but, however differs in number of strings (only two). The music is fascinating! Not every, even virtuous musician can cope with it, we can’t say this about the performance of our students from Kazakhstan! Asyltas Sarsengaliev, a soloist of the “Faculty” vocal group, accompanied by oriental music, managed to demonstrate not only distinctiveness and beauty of his native language, but also recitative art.
The final accord of the party were Middle Asia national dances, to which also joined our Russian students. The special coloristic character was added by national costumes, gowns decorated with ornament.
During the closing part of the party the students from Middle Asia congratulated each other, giving thanks to the Centre for international education and cooperation for arrangements.