TEHRAN — Night falls differently across Iran.

On Kharg Island, the darkness settles over the humid waters of the Persian Gulf. In Shiraz, the lights of the squares come on beneath the evening sky. In Sanandaj, people make their way toward Azadi Square. In Birjand, families gather in the cold. In Tonekabon, on the Caspian coast, an elderly war veteran walks slowly toward the crowd.

And in Arak, beneath the lights of Martyrs Square, a woman sits behind a sewing machine.

Her name is Zahra Fattahi.

For almost 200 nights, she has brought the machine with her, repairing damaged Iranian flags and preparing them to be raised again.

That image — a woman, a sewing machine, a piece of torn fabric and a square filled with people — may say more about these nights than any official statement.

Two hundred nights have now passed since nightly gatherings began in cities across Iran following the outbreak of war. What started in the immediate aftermath of the conflict has, according to reports by Mehr News Agency correspondents, continued through heat, humidity, rain and winter cold.

The gatherings have been different from city to city. Some have centered on mourning. Others have included cultural programs, Quran recitations, music, children's activities, food and tea booths, speeches and family gatherings.

But beneath the differences is one recurring image: people returning to the same public spaces night after night.

For many participants, these nights have also carried a second, more intimate meaning — the absence of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader who was killed during the war.

His absence is visible in photographs, banners, conversations and moments of silence. For some of those interviewed by Mehr, the nightly gathering has become a place where grief and public presence exist side by side.

On March 12, 2026, in his first wartime message, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei called on people to help one another during difficult days. On April 9, he said that the announcement of negotiations should not lead people to conclude that public presence in squares, neighborhoods and mosques was no longer necessary.

The 200 nights that followed have now become a vast collection of local stories.

The following is a journey through some of them.

Arak: Three generations beneath one flag

In Arak, capital of Markazi Province in central Iran, the camera finds a mother holding her child.

There is nothing spectacular about the image at first glance. No speech. No stage. No dramatic gesture.

Just a mother, a child and a crowd gathered at night.

Yet that is precisely what gives the photograph its emotional weight.

For 200 nights, the square has seen families arrive together. Parents have brought children into a public space where different generations stand side by side.

 Arak: A mother holds her young child during a nightly gathering at Martyrs Square in Arak, where families have been among the recurring participants over the past 200 nights.

Another photograph tells a different version of the same story.

Women from different generations stand together beneath a banner. Older women and younger women occupy the same frame, their faces separated by decades but brought together by the same night.

 Arak: Women from different generations stand together at Martyrs Square in Arak, creating a single frame that spans generations of Iranian women.

Then comes the sewing machine.

Every night, Zahra Fattahi brings hers to the square. She repairs flags damaged during the gatherings and prepares them to be raised again.

She told Mehr that she had attended almost all 200 nights.

Her contribution is small in physical scale: thread passing through cloth, a needle moving back and forth, a torn edge being joined.

But repeated night after night, it has become a symbol in the visual record of Arak.

Arak: Zahra Fattahi brings her sewing machine to Martyrs Square almost every night, repairing damaged Iranian flags and preparing them to be raised again.

There is something quietly mournful about the image, too.

A flag can be repaired.

A torn piece of cloth can be stitched.

But a person who has been lost cannot be brought back.

For some participants, that is the deeper emotional landscape of these nights: continuing to gather while remembering a leader whose absence has changed the meaning of the gathering itself.

Shiraz: A city that remembers

In Shiraz, the capital of Fars Province in southern Iran, the night begins with lights.

Imam Hussein Square, Moallem Square and Vali Asr Square gradually fill with people. Families arrive. Young people stand beside older residents. Flags rise above the crowd.

Mehr's account describes a city whose nightly gathering has been repeated for 200 nights.

The scene has its own rhythm.

People arrive.

The lights brighten.

Programs begin.

Voices fill the square.

And eventually, late at night, people go home.

Then the next night comes.

And they return.

The emotional force of such repetition is not necessarily in the size of the crowd but in the passage of time. A single night can be an event. Two hundred nights become a memory.

Kharg: Heat, humidity and the lights of the Gulf

On Kharg Island, the story takes place against one of Iran's most important oil landscapes.

The island lies in the Persian Gulf, in Bushehr Province, and is closely associated with Iran's oil export infrastructure.

It is also hot and intensely humid.

Yet the local account describes residents continuing to gather during the 200-night period.

At night, the oppressive heat does not disappear completely. The humidity remains in the air. The sea remains beyond the lights of the gathering.

And still, people come.

There is something elemental about that scene: an island surrounded by water, a city accustomed to heat, and people gathering after dark.

Kharg: Residents gather at night on Kharg Island in Bushehr Province, where the 200-night gatherings have continued despite the island's intense heat and humidity.

Birjand: A teenager among the generations

In Birjand, capital of South Khorasan Province in eastern Iran, the gatherings have been held in Maalem, Abuzar and Modarres squares.

Children stand beside adults. Older people watch the programs. Flags and cultural booths become part of the nightly landscape.

Fourteen-year-old Maedeh Fayazi is among those reported to have attended most nights.

Mahdi Rahimabadi, 42, was present on the 200th night.

Their ages are separated by almost three decades.

But the photograph of them in the same story captures something repeated throughout the country: the coexistence of generations in the same public space.

We will trample America underfoot

From the first night of the ‘Ramadan War’ to the 200th night of nightly gatherings across Alborz Province, residents of Karaj have continued to gather through heat and cold, rain and, in the early days of the war, amid bombings and missile attacks.

In Gohardasht, residents make their way to the nightly gathering along familiar routes. In Azimiyeh, people follow another established path, while Karaj, the provincial capital, has hosted the largest gatherings night after night.

 Mahmoud Moradpour, a Karaj resident holding a handwritten sign that reads, “We will trample America underfoot,” says the people will stand by the Islamic Republic, their Islamic identity and their Iranian identity to their final breath.

Mr. Akbari, another participant, who says he has attended the neighborhood and street gatherings for exactly 200 nights, describes the period as “200 nights of estrangement and separation from our beloved Imam.”

Mehdi, a 20-year-old participant, says that throughout the 200 days during which Iranians have taken to the streets, a sense of national honor has risen above differences in beliefs and backgrounds.

For those gathered across Karaj, the passage of 200 nights has become a record of continued presence — shaped by the changing seasons, difficult circumstances and a shared determination to remain together.

Sanandaj: When a square becomes a memory

In Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan Province in western Iran, Azadi Square has become one of the most recognizable settings of the 200-night story. It is the square that was once simply a square becomes a place people remember because they have returned to it so many times.

The gatherings have included children, teenagers, young people and families.

But the square has also become a cultural space.

Student anthems, Quran recitations, daf music, public booths and other activities have accompanied the gatherings. On some occasions, wedding ceremonies have also been held there.

Thirty-five-year-old Mortaza Sharaf-Bayani told Mehr that he had attended all 200 nights and had helped with programs and Quran recitation.

Mohammad Hassan, an 11-year-old boy from Kurdistan who had attended the gathering with his family, told Mehr correspondent: “I have come to this gathering to seek justice for the martyred leader and to express my support for this demand.”

Zahra Jafari a university student in Sanandaj, another participant in the nightly gathering said that students cannot remain indifferent to events unfolding in their country. The younger generation must understand political issues and be able, under different circumstances, to distinguish between various issues and political currents.

Sanandaj: Zahra Jafari a university student :The younger generation must understand political issues and be able, under different circumstances, to distinguish between various issues and political currents

"Steadfastness is not a habit, but a belief"

In Shirvan, North Khorasan Province in northeastern Iran, the story has unfolded around Imam Khomeini Mosque and Revolution Square. As the seasons changed and summer heat gave way to winter cold and rain, the nightly gatherings continued.

For Fatemeh, a teacher and mother of three, taking part has become far more than simply attending a nightly gathering. She recalls that the gatherings initially began in an atmosphere of mourning and remembrance, but gradually took on a different character.

“Every night, I saw more women joining us and the voice of solidarity growing stronger,” she says. “What began as small groups of just a few people has now become a regular nightly gathering. I feel that we have become one large family, coming together every night to raise our voices in solidarity and steadfastness.”

One of her most vivid memories is of a cold, rainy night when she expected the heavy downpour to keep many people away.

“I thought to myself, ‘Perhaps no one will come tonight,’” she recalls. “But when I arrived at the mosque, I saw that our gathering was just as full and as warm as ever.”

For Fatemeh, that night gave a deeper meaning to being present. As she later told Mehr, “Steadfastness is not a habit, but a belief.”

Around Revolution Square, tea and food booths have remained open, while exhibitions, children’s drawing stations, books, photographs, and cultural programs have filled the surrounding space.

On cold nights, warm tea has become part of the visual memory: steam rising from cups, people gathering around the booths, children staying close to their parents, and the lights remaining on as the square prepares to welcome another night.

Qom: Grief and continuity

In Qom, one of Iran's major religious cities in central Iran, gatherings have taken place in several locations, including Mofid Square, Tawhid Square, Army Square and Imam Khomeini Square, as well as routes toward the shrine of Hazrat Masoumeh.

Samira Zangi, 33, told Mehr that she had attended from the first night.

She spoke of attending with her family despite heat, cold and having a young child.

Her account reflects one of the recurring themes of the 200-night reports: the gathering as a family experience.

But Qom also carries another emotional layer.

For many people there, as elsewhere, the gatherings have taken place in the shadow of mourning.

The faces in the crowd are not only faces of participation. Some are faces of remembrance.

Tonekabon: The veteran who still comes

On Iran's northern Caspian coast, Tonekabon in Mazandaran Province offers perhaps one of the most poignant images of the entire story.

A 69-year-old man stands among the crowd. His name is Abolfazl Mirzaei. He is a 50-percent disabled war veteran. He has lived long enough to carry the physical memory of one war into another period of conflict.

Yet night after night, he makes his way toward Imam Khomeini Square.

Tonekabon: Abolfazl Mirzaei, 69, a 50-percent disabled war veteran, attends a nightly gathering at Imam Khomeini Square in Tonekabon despite his physical condition.

The photograph needs little explanation.

The man's age tells one story.

His disability tells another.

His presence tells a third.

The 200-night story is therefore not only about young faces or large crowds. It is also about people carrying memories from decades past into the present.

What does it mean to be proud?

The word “pride” is often used loosely when discussing nations.

But in the Iranian case, it has a deeper historical and cultural context.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that a strong sense of pride in Iran's cultural heritage, with Persian literature at its core, together with a consciousness of historical continuity and the belief that Iranians can survive recurrent periods of upheaval, has served as a cohesive force in Iranian identity.

That idea can be found across centuries of Persian literature.

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh preserved stories of kings, warriors, loss, endurance and the survival of a cultural memory across generations. Simin Behbahani, discussing Ferdowsi, described the Shahnameh as having helped revive a sense of pride and unity among Iranians.

Saadi, writing centuries earlier, reduced the idea of shared humanity to one of the most enduring images in Persian literature: human beings as members of one body.

These are literary traditions, not political instructions.

But they help explain why words such as dignity, endurance, homeland and memory carry such emotional weight in Iran.

Modern observers have noticed that characteristic as well.

On May 6, 2026, US President Donald Trump, speaking about negotiations with Iran, said of Iranians: "should raise the white flag of surrender" but that it is "too arrogant to do so."

He added that they can fight or cry when wounded and described their pride as particularly strong.

It was a striking acknowledgment from an American president of a characteristic frequently associated with Iranian national identity.

Two hundred nights

The 200 nights can be read in many ways.

Government officials have described them as a demonstration of national resolve. Critics of the gatherings may interpret them differently. The reports from Mehr, however, provide something more concrete: photographs and conversations with people who repeatedly returned to public squares.

A mother holding a child.

Women from several generations standing beneath one banner.

A woman repairing a flag with a sewing machine.

Children drawing.

A teenager returning to the same square.

A 35-year-old man helping with Quran recitation.

A 69-year-old veteran walking into the crowd despite his physical limitations.

And, everywhere, the night.

There is also grief.

The photographs contain smiles, flags, and gatherings, but they cannot entirely conceal the absence around which much of this period has been emotionally organized.

For some participants, the squares have become places to remember Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

His name appears on banners.

His image appears in the visual landscape.

And for those who came to regard him as their leader, his martyrdom left behind a form of absence that cannot be filled simply by another speech or another gathering.

That may be why some of the photographs feel quieter than the slogans surrounding them.

A mother holds her child.

An old veteran stands among younger people.

A woman bends over a sewing machine.

The flag is torn, and someone repairs it.

The night grows late.

Then people begin to leave.

The square becomes quieter.

But the story does not end there.

Two hundred nights are not two hundred identical nights.

They are two hundred evenings of changing weather, changing faces, changing emotions and repeated memories.

They are 200 nights in which a country at war has watched its people return to the same public spaces.

Whether viewed as political expression, mourning, communal ritual or a manifestation of national identity, the gatherings have produced a remarkable visual archive.

And perhaps the most powerful image is still the simplest one:

the lights of an Iranian square at night,

people slowly arriving,

and a flag — sometimes worn, sometimes torn, sometimes repaired by hand — rising once more above the crowd.