Puppet Dolls Museum

The Museum of Puppets of the Obraztsov Theater has an invaluable collection of fairy-tale-ish characters, documents, photo materials, sketches, drawings that have incorporated the experience and creative potential of more than one generation.

Here you will learn the story of Puppet Dolls theares of the world, starting from the very first ones, in the East and in the West and slowly coming to the appearance of this very theatre. An adult or a child, you will love this place and you will definitely find a “connection” as the Museum boasts exhibits from over 50 countries!

Where do you come from? From the States? No problem! Jim Henson with his Muppets. And, of course, the 2 famous puppeteers did meet! Sergei Obraztsov was featured in an episode of “Jim Henson Presents The World of Puppetry”

Henson Archivist pointed out that Jim Henson placed a special importance on meeting Obraztsov: «As a teenager learning to make puppets, Jim checked out some books from the public library for instruction – one was Obrtazov’s 1950 book, My Profession.»

The first dolls appeared in the museum as soon as they opened the theatre and the puppets collection is constantly expanding until now. At first the Museum occupied only 1 balcony, then it grew and now it has 4000 exhibits. Some of the puppets are from the old shows but sometimes the artisans even create a separate puppet for the Museum from the current theatre repertoire. In general, the collection follows chronological order of the puppet theatre performances from the first productions to the present.

On display are also puppet doll sketches, drawings and scenery models, caricatures, drafts of the theater building. Studying them one can see if the original plan differed from what we have today.

Obraztsov Puppet Museum is without any exaggeration the largest collection in the world, incorporating work results of the top theatre, literature and art specialists. It shows you the interaction in between different countries in the field of puppet dolls creation. The Museum demonstrates the process of birth and formation of professional puppet theater as a new cultural phenomenon.

At the excursion puppeteer shows the process of managing the puppets 🙂 whilst telling you the exciting theatre story.