Iranian's Around the World Celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year

Happy Nowruz to all the Iranian peoples who follow our blog! 2011 Nowruz happed yesterday, March 20th, at 11:21 PM UTC. For those of you who don’t know, Nowruz, also known to many as the Persian New Year, is the beginning of the New Year in Iranian calendars and is celebrated in numerous countries in the Middle East and also parts of Central Asia, Caucasus, South Asia, Northwestern China, and the Crimea.

The holiday is celebrated each March on the day and at the exact time of the astronomical March equinox, when the sun crosses the celestial equator. The day is a public holiday in numerous countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Kashmir. Nowruz was also added to the national calendar of Canada on March 30, 2009.

Iranians have influenced countries around the world, and now even cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and London host events on the day of the Persian New Year. In Iran, Nowruz is easily the most important holiday of the year, and many traditions surround the holiday. One of these traditions is the Khouneh Tekouni or spring cleaning, in which Persian families clean the entire house to prepare for Nowruz, and often buy new wardrobes for the new year.

On the night of the New Year, families gather and wait for the exact moment of the equinox, and they exchange gifts right as the year begins. The celebrations generally last for close to two weeks, during which time people visit family and friends, and host family and friends when they reciprocate the visits.

We wish all of those who are currently celebrating Nowruz a peaceful and fulfilling New Year, and thank you for being customers of StanaCard or followers of our blog. Remember to stay in touch with your friends and family back home during this holiday season, and to tell your friends to use StanaCard. What better way is there to start off the year than with a $10 referral bonus!

Rates to Iran Drop 25%

Iran’s Under-23 football team has showed that they can coach themselves by defeating Kyrgyzstan 1-0 in the first leg of the qualifying round for the 2012 Olympics in London. The squad has been coachless for months and the search is still continuing. They will now travel to Kyrgyzstan for the second and final leg of the playoff on March 9. Since Iran only scored one goal at home, they do not have a very big cushion, and will need to make sure Kyrgyzstan doesn’t rack up the goals at home in order to move on and get a spot in the Olympics.

Want to call and chat about football or just catch-up with a friend in Iran? Now you can easily and very inexpensively as we have decided to DECREASE our rates to Iran! The new rates have decreased as much as 24%, and many of them are now well over 30% cheaper than Skype and other companies!

The savings with our new rates are outrageous. If there’s ever a perfect time to tell friends about StanaCard and our ridiculously low rates, now would be it.

A $5 credit will now let you call Iran for up to 40 minutes! That is about 33% cheaper than Skype, and unlike Skype and most calling cards, we charge absolutely no connection fees. You pay only for what you use.

What’s even better than cheap minutes? Free minutes! Simply refer us to friends, their first purchase is doubled and you get an up to $10 worth of bonus credit as soon as they make their first call with us. For more information, check out our referral page.

Traveling abroad soon? See how to avoid all roaming charges no matter where you go.