Ruby Club in Van: Party guests from Iran celebrate the New Year, DJ Iman in the foreground
Image: Friederike Böge
Thousands of Iranians celebrate the Persian New Year in the Turkish provincial town of Van. They drink, dance and do everything that is forbidden in their country.
DJ Iman walks excitedly through his still empty nightclub. He takes off his cowhide coat and strokes his glittering jacket. His phone rings nonstop. The callers want to reserve the last free tables in the Ruby Club. The Persian New Year begins in a few hours. It’s Tuesday evening. Thousands of Iranians are in Van to welcome the New Year with vodka and techno. They’re on vacation from the moral guards.
Van is not what you would imagine a party town to be. A conservative Kurdish provincial nest in the deep east of Türkiye. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains where shepherds tend their sheep in summer. An important stopover on the migration route from Afghanistan to Europe, on which Iranian refugees are also traveling. There are twelve well-filled nightclubs in the city for tourists from neighboring countries. There are two reasons why so many Iranians come to Van: it’s close, and it’s cheap. The city is only a hundred kilometers from the border. In the past, people mainly came from the surrounding areas. Kurds from Urmia and Azeris from Tabriz who could communicate in Kurdish or Turkish. They came to shop or make a stopover on the long route to the beaches of the Mediterranean. Then tour operators recognized Van’s potential as a party destination. Since then, young people have been brought here in buses from all parts of Iran. From Tehran, Shiraz, Rasht and even from the pilgrim city of Mashhad, where the headscarf requirement is particularly strictly interpreted.
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