Gonabad’s “jumping” was registered in the country’s cultural heritage list

The head of registration of historical monuments and intangible heritage of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of Khorasan Razavi said: the native and local game “Saqe Bazi” of Mand Gonabad village was registered as the 13th traditional game of the province in the national list of intangible cultural heritage of the country.

Announcing this news on Saturday, Mahmoud Taghraei added: Saqeh Bazi is one of the most popular indigenous and local games in Gonabad city, which is well received by the people despite the cultural and economic changes of the society in some areas of Gonabad.

The head of registration of historical monuments and intangible heritage of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of Khorasan, Razavi continued: Mand village is one of the centers of playing checkers in Gonabad region.

He stated: Squatting is one of the skill and sports games of the region, which is more common among young people and adults, and steel balls are the main tool of this game.

Stating that the number of players in this native game varies from four to seven people, Toghrai said: During this game, the players must conquer the pits dug in the playing field with the balls they have. More pits give a favorable competitive dimension to this game.

He added: There is no written document related to the history of chess, and the hand-to-hand transmission of this game dates back to the village of Mand, and according to the speculations about the name of this game, it seems that this game can be more than a hundred years old. This game can be considered among the old games of Gonabad region.

Razavi, the person in charge of registration of historical monuments and intangible heritage of the General Department of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of Khorasan, said that saqeh bazi has a significant similarity with marbles, and continued: in the sense that in both games, the goal is to conquer houses (pits dug in the ground). The two games are similar, but the playing equipment and the playing field are different in billiards.

He continued: In chess, the ball (metal ball) is between five hundred grams and two kilograms, and the playing field is much bigger than the marble field. In addition, in this game, special marks are used to count points, which are not present in marbles.

Taghraei said: Today, the people of Mand village, with wide acceptance of this game, spontaneously preserve it, and even in the Nowruzgah celebration, which has been performed in the last few years in Gonabad city, they have included this game in their programs, and this issue has caused More introduction and sustainability of this game has been done in Gonabad region.

He reminded: Certainly, holding a festival of indigenous local games at the level of Gonabad city and paying special attention to this game at the said festival and holding skating competitions at the level of the villages of the region and even introducing this game to the sports program of the city’s schools can be among the appropriate measures to preserve This work is an intangible cultural heritage.

The person in charge of registration of historical monuments and intangible heritage of the General Department of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of Khorasan Razavi stated that before this 12 native and local games of Khorasan Razavi province were registered in the national register between 1388 and 1400. Gonabad has been registered in the list of intangible cultural heritage of the country under number 2690.