Buratino

Aleksey Tolstoy

Like Pinocchio, Buratino is a long-nosed wooden puppet. According to the story, he is carved by Papa Carlo (the story's version of Geppetto) 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 (the story's Mangiafuoco character) 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.The story proceeds to tell of Buratino and his friends' hunt for the Golden Key, and their struggle against the evil Karabas, his loyal friend Duremar, as well as a couple of crooks: Alice the Fox and Basilio the Cat (based on The Fox and the Cat), who are after Buratino's coins. Many of Buratino's further adventures are, however, derived from Collodi's Pinocchio, but are reworked to fit into Tolstoy's story.©&? IE Vorobev V.A.; ©&? Publishing House Soyuz