MOSCOW, March 21 - RIA Novosti. Many Muslim countries are celebrating Nauruz, or Now Ruz, today. Russia's President Vladimir Putin forwarded congratulatory messages on the occasion to his counterparts of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, reports the Kremlin press service.
Nauruz (the Persian for "new light"), New Year festival according to the solar calendar, is celebrated on the spring equinox, Farwadin 1, first spring day in the old Persian calendar. It is popular in Iran, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Asia Minor, and with the Bashkir and Tatar. However well-loved in a great part of the Muslim world, the celebration is rooted not in the Koran but in the pre-Islamic tradition, eventually to be adapted to Muslim customs. Persians were celebrating it in grand style as early as the 6th century into the 4th B.C.
