The Varna Puppet Theatre and Museum is located at 4 Dragoman Street, Varna, close to the Happy Bar and Grill. Here there is something for everyone, from old-fashioned children's "Punch and Judy" style to serious adult biased themes.

    The puppet museum was opened in 1985 and contains about 130 theatre puppets, elements and decors. After a period of interruption from 1990 to 2002 the artist Tsvetana Vekova rearranged the exposition. Unique puppets were made by Georgi Saravanov (founder of the theatre) and then by younger colleagues from 18 emblematical performances (1952-2000). Their medals and distinctions are on show in three display cases. The exposition twists the creative efforts of authors, directors, actors, artists, and constructors. Different techniques, styles and tends in a free genre of applied art has been followed. Also the creative hand of leading Bulgarian stage designers like the architect Ivan Tsonev, Maia Petrova, Lubomir Tsakev, Maia Kuzova, Anna Pulieva, Angel Nedelchev, Kosta Ortodoksov, Petia Stoikova, etc. helped win many prestigious awards, including the Golden Dolphin, 4 times (1978, 1981, 1996, 2005), the Special prize (2002), and the Varna prize, and many international prizes and awards.

   Over the last 55 years, more than 250 productions and 20,000 performances have been staged by the Varna State Puppet Theatre and watched by more than 8 million spectators in Bulgaria and abroad.

 

Working time: Tuesday–Friday 10:00–17:00, Saturday 10:00-13:00

Phone: 052 60 78 43 and 052 60 78 44

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    Puppets’ Fair International Festival
   The Bulgarian capital city Sofia hosted the fifth edition of the Puppets’ Fair international festival of puppeteers organized by the Sofia Puppet Theatre and the Municipality of Sofia.

   More than 20 companies from Bulgaria and abroad performed and made this an unforgettable experience for children and their parents.
     Established puppeteer companies from Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, the UK, Italy, Spain, the United States and Russia took part in the event. Some of the shows were staged as attractive street parades, bright fireworks and acrobatic numbers on stilts. The Bulgarian performers revealed the new trends in the artistic quest of directors and set designers. Two exhibitions of set design were unveiled within the festival’s framework. One of them was dedicated to the Polish wooden puppets, and the second presented the work of architect Ivan Tzonev.
    Here is what Kiryakos Argiropoulos, director of the Sofia Puppet Theatre, told a Radio Bulgaria reporter, “The festival is a holiday for children and professionals. Everyone can see the vivid picture of this eternally young art. Actors and directors discover new trends and special dimensions. It was our wish to have puppeteering everywhere: in the streets, in front of the National palace of Culture in Sofia, at Sofia Theatre, at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Art, and at the Sofia Puppet Theatre.”

        
      Professor Atanas Ilkov is one of the founders of the Puppeteer Acting School. He has developed his own methodology and has left his mark on several generations of Bulgarian actors and directors. “It is a fact that without festivals the artists become ever lonelier. These international meetings are very necessary because they can broaden our aesthetic horizons. I have been living with the breath of puppet theatre for 60 years now, and we can only be happy because we saw that this art is alive and is developing very fast.”
     Slavcho Malenov, one of Bulgaria’s leading puppet directors, had this to share, “The festival is first and foremost a venue for information exchange. To the artist it is the necessary mirror in which they see where they are and how they fare against the overall trends and search in puppeteering.”

KUKLADJIYATA NENO

        Kukladjiyata Neno - artistic alias for Neno Hristov - wandering puppeteer, one of the first puppet performers in Bulgaria.

     Neno Kuklajiyata (Neno, the Puppeteer) was the first wandering puppeteer to be documented in Bulgaria. Born in Nova Mahala in 1861, he was a blacksmith and in 1893 he started animating puppets and travel throughout the country with them. Witty and humorous, he made his own puppets, but fervently concealed the source of his knowledge. He used to play the "tambura" (a traditional string instrument), he sang and made tricks. Despite the general popularity though Neno Kuklajiyata almost led the life of a vagrant, wandering from town to town with his puppets. He died in 1916 in Lovech, on November 5.