Buratino

Buratino (Russian: Буратино) is the main character of the book The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino (1936) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Based on the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Buratino originated as a character in the commedia dell'arte. The name Buratino is derived from the Italian burattino, which means wooden puppet or doll. The book was published in 1936, and Buratino quickly became hugely popular among children in the Soviet Union, and remains so to this day. The story has been made into several films, including in 1959 and in 1975.

According to Tolstoy, he had read Pinocchio as a child, but, having lost the book, he started re-imagining it many years later in an attempt to come up with a series of bedside stories for his own children. The resulting story turned out to be so original and became so loved by the writer's children, that he decided to put it to paper and publish it.

Like Pinocchio, Buratino is a long-nosed wooden puppet. According to the story, he is carved by Papa Carlo from a log, and suddenly comes to life. Upon creation, Buratino comes out long-nosed due to Papa Carlo's sloppy woodworking. Papa Carlo tries to shorten it, but Buratino resists.

Papa Carlo then sells his only good jacket in order to buy textbooks for Buratino and sends him to school. However, the boy becomes distracted by an advertisement for a local puppet theater show, and sells his textbooks to buy a ticket to the show. There he befriends other puppets, but the evil puppetmaster Karabas Barabas wants to destroy him because Buratino disrupted the show.

Karabas Barabas releases Buratino after he learns that Papa Carlo's home contains a secret door for which Karabas has been searching. A Golden Key that Karabas once possessed, but later lost, opens this secret door. Karabas releases Buratino and even gives him five gold coins, asking only that Buratino watch after his father's home and make sure they do not move.

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