AKRE, Kurdistan Region of Iraq — For Kurds across the Middle East, the vernal equinox is more than a date on the calendar: it is Nowruz, the spring new year and a focal point of Kurdish cultural identity.
More than 30 million Kurds live in a contiguous cultural region that spans parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. In Akre, an ancient town set against rugged mountains in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Nowruz has long drawn people from nearby valleys and across borders.
At dusk this year, despite heavy rain and storm clouds, hundreds of people lit torches and carried them up the mountainside, a ritual meant to signal light conquering darkness. Women wore long, glittering Kurdish gowns that recall medieval portraits, while many men donned traditional baggy trousers and woven cummerbunds. Marchers left smoldering embers by the trail and draped a long Kurdish flag along the slope.
The procession evokes a Kurdish legend about a courageous blacksmith who rallied villagers to topple a tyrant and announced their freedom with fires on the heights. Organizers arranged flames to form the numbers two and one, a visual reference to the saying often translated as “two plus two equals one,” asserting that Kurdish communities separated by borders nevertheless form a single people.
Usually Akre’s celebrations include larger summit bonfires and more exuberant crowds. This year’s observance was more subdued because of regional fighting and bad weather. Iranian drones and missiles that have crossed into the Kurdish region targeting U.S. positions kept some residents away. Even so, many Kurds from Syria, Iran and Turkey braved both the risk and the rain to join.
Ties between Iraqi Kurdistan authorities and leaders of Syria’s Kurdish-led administration have warmed in recent months. In January, Iraqi Kurdish officials offered political support and humanitarian aid after Syrian government forces pushed into Kurdish-held areas, and that thaw has helped increase cross-border participation at cultural events.
In Akre’s central plaza, under strings of lights and a steady drizzle, families in bright traditional dress posed for photographs, musicians beat drums and groups danced. Young people climbed to high vantage points and some sheltered in tents on the ridges until the torchlit procession began. Children and elders stood together as the flames cut through the night — a ceremony rooted in myth but charged with contemporary meaning: cultural survival, solidarity, and the hope that light, literal and symbolic, will prevail over darkness.