Thirteen out of doors
Sizdah Bedar closes the Nowruz holidays. Thirteen was long thought an unlucky number, so on the thirteenth day families leave their homes to the bad luck and spend the whole day outside, in parks, gardens, forests and riverbanks. It is one of the busiest days of the year on Iran’s roads, and cities are almost empty.
Throwing away the sabzeh
The sabzeh, the green sprouts grown for the haft-sin, has spent the holidays absorbing the household’s sickness and bad luck. On Sizdah Bedar it is carried out and thrown into running water, taking the bad luck with it. Young people who hope to marry tie knots in blades of grass and make a wish. There are kites, football, volleyball, big pots of ash reshteh and kebabs on the grill, and people play pranks on each other with the dorugh-e sizdah, the “thirteenth lie.”
