Tehran residents welcome Yalda with dancing and celebration

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It is Friday, 28 Azar 1404, 19 December 2025. We are on the eve of Yalda. Sunday night, the night of the first of Dey, which is really the first night of winter, is Yalda night, the longest night of the year. People have known this night since ancient times, perhaps for several thousand years, and they knew that from the day after Yalda, from the first day of winter, the days grow longer and the shortening of the days and the lengthening of the night and darkness come to an end. In Iran, as far as historical records

1:02 show, from the Achaemenid era through the Parthian period, and especially in the Sasanian period, our ancestors celebrated Yalda and considered it the night of the birth of the sun. The word "Yalda" itself comes from Syriac and means birth, nativity. On this night they worshipped the deity Mehr, that is, Mithra, as well as Anahita, the goddess of fertility, earth and water. In any case, this night carried on with its traditions into the Sasanian era, despite the changes that came with the dominance of the Zoroastrian religion,

2:00 and after Islam it not only did not disappear but endured. Some concepts, such as worship of Mithra or Mehr, changed, but the rest of its traditions have survived to this day: eating fruits such as pomegranates, which are red and represent fire, symbols of fire and light, or seeds and nuts, known as ajil, as symbols of fertility, and so on, have continued from ancient times until now. But one of the admirable traditions of our ancestors was that on this night they not only came together, with family, friends and acquaintances

3:02 forming gatherings, but they also spent the night under the open sky, gathering in the streets and neighborhoods. They lit lights and fires as a sign that on this night, until morning, until the sun rose, they were using light and brightness to help the divine force fighting Ahriman. The divine, which is at war with darkness and with Ahriman, needs light and brightness. And this admirable tradition was sometimes accompanied by wearing white clothes, a symbol of purity, light and brightness, and above all it was something our ancestors cherished and embraced.

4:02 This gathering and being out in the streets and neighborhoods is, in my opinion, an enduring tradition. Although today Yalda night has mostly moved under the korsi and inside the home, with families gathering together, part of this night, at least, if not until dawn, can also be spent out in the streets and neighborhoods, with the light of lamps, or at least the lights of mobile phones and so on, celebrating and dancing. In other words, at a time when Ahriman and his representative in Iran, the Zahhak of our time, have spread the shadow of poverty,

4:55 corruption, discrimination, insecurity and repression, this gathering of the people, being together, rejoicing, calling on light and brightness for help, standing hand in hand, is certainly one of the things that drives Ahriman, the Ahriman ruling Iran, back. I am relating this based on things I have seen on social media, but today I saw that in Tehran, too, a group of women and men, dancing and rejoicing and running from the Bazaar area to Shahr Park, along with

5:48 singing, celebration and dancing, went out to welcome Yalda. This is a worthy act which, in my view, can continue until Sunday night and even after that, especially if at night it is combined with white symbols and light and brightness, along with dancing and celebration and joy. Because these acts, especially being together and breaking out of the isolation, disillusionment, despair and hopelessness that the regime wants to inject into the nation and load onto its shoulders, are certainly an important part of overcoming the Zahhak ruling Iran, Mr. Khamenei and those around him, the heralds of corruption, theft, poverty and

6:47 repression, and they are a help to the pure divine and to the forces that help the people. Every day new dimensions of the regime's corruption are also coming to light. Today the Central Bank's deputy for foreign exchange stated that 900 single-use commercial cards have caused 15 billion dollars to leave the country's foreign currency cycle. Six billion dollars of that figure is attributable to just 15 people, most of whom are from villages and remote border areas. In fact, the story is that corruption gangs in Tehran go to

7:45 villagers in remote places and, in exchange for paying them some money, borrow their so-called national ID cards. With these they go and obtain commercial cards through the corruption network they have, and with these commercial cards they make foreign currency commitments and export goods, which usually benefit from so-called preferential prices, but they do not return the foreign currency to the country. And that commercial card belongs to, say, an old woman living in some remote village, someone nobody can go and arrest and ask, for example, "Where did you take the one billion dollars of foreign currency?" So this corruption network, which

8:40 has been operating for years, is part of the country's corruption, has backers at the highest levels of the regime, and has developed its own structure and network. According to the deputy governor of the Central Bank, in the last year alone 15 billion dollars did not return, and so far this year 9 billion dollars has left and not returned. This is while it is said that the government does not have the foreign currency to provide 30 billion dollars for food, medicine and essential goods, and that is exactly why all the production chains for food, dairy products, medicine and so on have started to falter and run into problems.

9:39 Today two press conferences were held, one in Moscow by Mr. Putin and the other by Mr. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, in Washington. Every year, on the eve of the new year and the Christmas and New Year holidays, Mr. Putin holds a press conference. Apart from the various issues he raised, on peace in Ukraine he effectively rejected Europe's 20-point proposal and said very clearly that Ukraine must accept the separation of the areas in Russia's hands, which is roughly 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Ukraine's territory: Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, but besides that, parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, known as the Donbas region,

10:36 parts of Zaporizhzhia, where the large nuclear power plant is located, the Kherson region, and some other areas. Mr. Putin also threatened that if Ukraine does not accept, Russia will seek to expand its gains. That is, it will not only continue the war but will try to capture more territory. This weekend, Saturday and Sunday, Russian representatives are supposed to come to Miami and talk with Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump's envoys, who had also spoken with the Europeans. Mr. Marco Rubio may also join them.

11:29 But Mr. Rubio, in his press conference in Washington, strongly attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran and said that if Iran is not now the most sanctioned country in the world, it is at least one of them. He stated that our problem with the Islamic Republic, apart from nuclear weapons and the issue of terrorism, is another problem: this regime's treatment of the people of Iran. Regarding Mr. Maduro, he said that Maduro cooperates with terrorist elements, including the Islamic Republic, and he also said that, regarding what America is doing, he is not worried about a confrontation with Russia, because Russia's support

12:24 for Venezuela is verbal and they will not get into a confrontation with America. Fortunately, the rainfall that has been occurring in various parts of the country since last week is expected next week to cover the northern and western half of the country as well, especially the mountainous areas. But in the south and east of the country, covering the provinces from Khuzestan to Bushehr and Hormozgan, as well as Fars and Kerman provinces, flooding has unfortunately so far cost the lives of 7 of our compatriots, two of whom are children and one of whom was a rescue worker

13:18 of the Red Crescent. In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.