The Festival of Fire — Chahar Shanbeh Soori — celebrates the eve of the last Wednesday of the year. On Tuesday evening, raging bonfires are built in an observance that originated in a Zoroastrian ritual welcoming and protecting the returning souls of ancestors visiting the living. The young light fireworks and jump over these fires, shouting wishes for good health in a purification rite that draws on the beneficial effects of fire and light to chase away illness. Children wrap themselves in shrouds meant to represent the visiting spirits and rush through town banging pots and pans with spoons to ward off the bad luck of the lingering winter. They also knock on doors and ask for treats. Some make wishes on this night then eavesdrop on the conversations of passersby, in the hope that overhearing positive and optimistic details will improve the chances of their wishes being granted. Many of the deeper religious and historic meanings of these practices have been lost with time, and with the exception of Zoroastrians, the Festival of Fire is a secular festival for most Iranians. While the festivities have been fostered as a positive expression of national culture, Islamic purists tend to view them as a superstitious tradition, linked to the Shah, and have in the past sentenced a very few people to jail for disrupting public order during the celebration.

CREDIT: Hasan Sarbakhshian/Associated Press