On Saturday, the Puppet Museum was grandly opened in Tehran, located in the Ferdowsi Foundation Rudaki hall. The opening ceremony coincided with the 76th birthday of Iranian theater director Behrouz Garibpour, a pioneer of Persian puppet operas and founder of the Aran Puppet Group.
The museum features about 800 puppets that illustrate the 23-year connection between puppet theater art and the literary and cultural treasures of Iran, including works by famous Persian poets such as Ferdowsi, Hafez, Rumi, Saadi, and Attar.
Speaking at the ceremony, Garibpour emphasized the extensive educational potential of the museum. He noted that the museum provides students and schoolchildren who are choosing their future professions an opportunity to familiarize themselves with artistic and cultural specialties.
Garibpour added that, unlike many other museums that highlight Iran's past and historical background, this museum introduces visitors not only to part of the country's cultural heritage but also to the process of creating puppets, the art of puppetry, and experiences that had no parallel before the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
He recalled that over 23 years of the Aran Puppet Group's activity, dozens of trained artists have performed on stage, striving to pass on the treasury of Persian literature and poetry to subsequent generations through the art of puppetry.
Regarding the 800 exhibits, Garibpour mentioned that due to space limitations, there are many works that cannot yet be displayed, and expressed hope for the expansion of the venue to showcase the achievements of figures in this field.
Furthermore, he announced an upcoming puppet opera production titled 'Love,' based on Attar's work 'Conference of Birds,' scheduled to premiere on September 28. This story tells of Sheikh San'an and a Christian maiden, being part of a mystical Persian poem and the longest story from 'Conference of Birds.'
Leila Hosravi, Director General of Museums at the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts, also spoke at the ceremony. She characterized the opening of the Puppet Museum as an 'event of another kind' in museology. Hosravi stressed that the museum is connected to various disciplines such as literature, music, performing arts, and storytelling, making it a valuable example of a museum dedicated to intangible heritage.
She added that the importance of creating such a museum lies in the fact that children and adolescents can learn about both the art of puppetry and the historical narratives and components of the nation's intangible heritage through their presence.
Mehdi Shafiei, Deputy for Artistic Affairs at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, also participated in the event. He called the creation of this museum one of the significant events in the field of culture and art in recent years, and its importance increases when compared to similar museums in other countries around the world.
Shafiei stated that the museum is not just a repository of objects, but the memory of the nation, a place where the past does not end but is passed on to the future. He noted that the puppets, coming alive on stage and telling romantic, historical, and literary stories, represent a piece of Iran's history and literature to the public.
He also emphasized that every figurine, costume, set design, and object in this collection is part of the history of Iranian art, allowing one to observe the evolutionary path of Iranian puppetry.
Referring to Garibpour's creative journey, Shafiei noted that during a period when puppetry was often considered a secondary art form, Garibpour believed in the potential of this medium and brought the puppet into the sphere of Iranian culture and literary narration.
Stressing the need to register and preserve the country's contemporary artistic heritage, Shafiei stated that cultural heritage remains alive only when it is not only preserved but can also be recreated and connected with the modern generation. From this perspective, the museum should serve not as an endpoint, but as a living center for research, education, documentation, intergenerational dialogue, and training young artists.
Shafiei also highlighted the museum's potential in cultural diplomacy and presenting Iranian art and culture to non-Iranian audiences, expressing hope that the museum will become a center for educating the younger generation, researching puppetry, developing international cooperation, and promoting Iranian art.
After the ceremony, guests toured various sections of the Puppet Museum and witnessed excerpts from the opera 'Love.' They were also able to meet the actors and crew, as well as see the backstage preparations for the opera.
A marionette, or string puppet, is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings, depending on regional characteristics. A puppeteer is the operator of the marionette. Marionettes can be controlled by a hidden or visible puppeteer using a vertical or horizontal control bar in various forms of theaters or entertainment venues. They have also been used in cinema and television.
Behrouz Garibpour studied theater at Tehran University and at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome (Silvio D'Amico). He founded puppet theater centers in Tehran and Isfahan and transformed the Tehran slaughterhouse into Iran's greatest cultural center. He has experience in writing scripts and directing in areas such as theater, puppetry, film, documentaries, and television.
Garibpour is best known for his deep research on Iranian puppetry practiced during the Qajar era. Before founding the Aran Puppet Group, he formed the 'Iran Heymeh Shab Bazi' Group to revive Heymeh Shab Bazi, traditional Iranian puppetry, involving both traditionally and modernly trained puppeteers. This group performed in Iran and abroad, including Czechia, Portugal, and Venezuela. In 2003, Garibpour founded the Aran Puppet Group with members of his former group.
Garibpour combined elements of epic Persian poetry, religious Tazieh opera, and traditional interest in puppetry when creating the Aran Group to help revive national opera, drawing on global experience. As a researcher, playwright, and director in film, television, theater, and puppetry, he developed works with string puppets (marionettes) for adult audiences.
Members of his group have been trained in various university programs and possess a high level of knowledge in their work. The group has performed in Tehran, Mashhad, Gorgan, and Shiraz in Iran. Internationally, they have performed in Rome (twice), Turin, Prague, Dubai (three times), Tbilisi, Krakow, and Charlottesville-Morgantown.
Earlier puppet operas by the Aran Puppet Group include 'Rostam and Sohrab' (2004), 'Macbeth' (2007), 'Ashura' (2008), 'Rumi' (2010), and 'Hafez' (2012), among others.
Every year, as the monsoon rains recede from the arid plains of Telangana, women rise before dawn to gather wild flowers that bloom uniquely and stack them into towers resembling temple gopurams. This ritual is called Batukamma, and although today it attracts visitors from Los Angeles to London, its earliest echoes date back approximately 800 years to the fortified city of Warangal and the queen who ruled in disguise as a king.
The Kakatiya dynasty ruled over large territories of modern Telangana in the 12th and 13th centuries, with their capital being Orugallu, now known as Warangal. Their reign left behind some of the finest architectural examples of the Deccan, including the Thousand Pillar Temple built in 1163 under King Rudradeva, and the Ramappa Temple, completed in 1213 and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Rudradeva's relative, Rani Rudradevi, became part of one of the enduring stories associated with Batukamma. Her father, Ganapatideva, had no sons, so he officially appointed her as his heir through the ceremony of putrika and named her Rudradeva. Around 1262, she ascended the throne, ruled in men's attire, suppressed rebellions by the nobility resisting female rule, and strengthened the Warangal fort started by her father.
Historical tradition attributes to her the promotion of the worship of Kakatamma, a regional mother goddess, especially in Mogilicharla, where grand processions with music, dance, and the ceremonial immersion of the deity in nearby water took place during Durga Ashtami. This final ritual is often mentioned as one thread in the long history of Batukamma: the flowers offered to the water and the prayer for their return next year reflect the symbolism now known as Saddula Batukamma, the grand conclusion of the nine-day festival.
However, the story of Rudradevi is not an undisputed foundational narrative of Batukamma. Historians and scholars have also traced the roots of the festival to older local agricultural, seasonal, and female fertility traditions, some of which may predate the Kakatiyas. Thus, the Kakatiya-Rudradevi connection represents one of the historical memories woven into the festival's history, rather than its ultimate origin.
Historians acknowledge that the exact origin remains truly disputed, but the link to the Kakatiyas is the version most frequently sung in Batukamma folk songs. It is this multilayered history that prompts many in Telangana to call Warangal a symbolic birthplace of Batukamma, even though other folk traditions circulate nearby, including stories of the daughter of a Chalukya king and the goddess Parvati.
Regardless of the precise origin, Batukamma is undoubtedly a festival of the earth. It begins on 'Mahalaya Amavasya' and lasts for nine days until Durga Ashtami, marking the seasonal transition from Varsha Ritu, the monsoon season, to Sharad Ritu, autumn. As the rains subside, wild and mostly medicinal flowers bloom on the uncultivated plains of Telangana, mainly gunuka and tangedu, along with banti and chamanti.
Men and boys gather these flowers every morning, while women arrange them in seven concentric layers resembling a temple gopuram, crowned with a small saffron idol called Gauramma. Each of the nine days has its own food offering, from sesame and rice on the first day to a rich, sweetened rice preparation on the last, and every evening the floral pyramid is carried in a procession, accompanied by folk verses sung in response, and finally immersed in a pond or lake.
This concluding act is entirely dependent on Telangana's older water culture: the region's extensive network of reservoirs and lakes was originally constructed to retain monsoon runoff for agriculture, a legacy so closely tied to local memory that the lake in Amberpet, Hyderabad, still bears the name of this festival. Many of these water bodies, affected by decades of urban growth, are now being revitalized through community efforts that reflect the same ecological instinct that Batukamma carries through the centuries: returning to the water what it once gave you.
When Telangana became the 29th state of India in 2014, its government declared Batukamma, alongside Bonalu, an official state festival on June 26, 2014. Since then, the state has funded free sarees and large public celebrations, and Batukamma has transformed into a symbol of Telangana's identity, celebrated far beyond its borders among diaspora communities in Dubai, Qatar, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia.
This instinct to preserve old practices with new hands permeates much of Telangana's culture. In Cheriyal, a small group of Nakashi family artists still hand-paint scrolls that once accompanied wandering storytellers recounting the very oral folklore preserved in Batukamma songs. In the outskirts of Pochampally, weavers, whose craft was mechanized by Lakshmi Asu, invented by a student to ease his mother's joint pain, demonstrate how tradition survives by adapting, not by remaining static.
As national concerns grow regarding flowers discarded into rivers after festivals, entrepreneurs elsewhere are already turning discarded flowers into incense and dyes instead of allowing them to pollute the water—a shift that Batukamma communities are also beginning to consider for their post-immersion flowers.
This year, Batukamma takes place from October 11 to 18. As it has for generations, the festival unfolds as a private story of women becoming public: songs, never recorded, are passed from mother to daughter, filling the streets, courtyards, and banks of Telangana's lakes with a color that, if the memory of the Kakatiya era is correct, has been blooming there for almost a thousand years.
The II International Gastronomic Festival titled 'National Dishes of the Khorezm Khans' took place at the 'Arda Khiva' tourist complex on September 19 and 20. Over two days, the city of Khiva used the venue not only to showcase its architecture and museum exhibits but also to tell the region's history through cuisine.
More than twenty different traditional dishes of Khorezm were presented at the event. These included items such as tukhum barak, kok barak, qovoq barak, shivit oshi, gumma, ijjon, as well as various soups, meat products, and local types of bread.
Special attention was paid to dishes characteristic of traditional Khorezm cuisine. The program featured goshtli qovurma, goshtli dimlama, qazon kabob, jigar kabob, tuncha shorva, Khorezm mastava, as well as various types of patir—meat patir, durvadik patir, and bog'irsog.
Some of these dishes are available today in ordinary Khorezm homes and establishments, while others require significant time and special culinary skills. This made the festival not just a display of ready-to-eat food; visitors had the opportunity to observe the cooking process and learn about the traditions behind the well-known names.
In addition to local cuisine, participants in the festival presented culinary masterpieces from various countries around the world. The international section featured beshbarmak from Kazakhstan, kurutob from Tajikistan, kebab from Turkey, and dolma from Azerbaijan. The program also included dishes from Georgia, India, China, South Korea, and Italy, including khachapuri, biryani, bulgogi, and lasagna.
More than 19 restaurants, chefs, and representatives of the gastronomic tourism sector from various regions of Uzbekistan participated in the festival. Tastings, gastronomic exhibitions, and practical master classes were organized for guests, allowing them not only to taste the dishes but also to see them prepared within the complex.
The event was also accompanied by a cultural program featuring national melodies and songs, as well as various entertainment and thematic events. Attendees included both local residents of the region and tourists who arrived in Khiva.
A separate element of the festival was the gastronomic competition, whose winners were awarded a prize fund of 120 million soms: 60 million for first place, 40 million for second, and 20 million for third.
Khorezm cuisine is inextricably linked to the region's history, as it includes dishes unique to this land, such as green shivit oshi, various types of barak, ijjon, and Khorezm patirs. Each of these dishes has its own unique preparation method, set of ingredients, and is often associated with family memories.
Thus, the gastronomic festival in Khiva went beyond a simple cooking competition. Through food, participants were able to show a part of Khorezm's everyday history—the part rarely found in textbooks but preserved in recipes and in the hands of those who continue to cook using ancient methods.
Over the two days, the 'Arda Khiva' complex managed to unite Khorezm's national cuisine with dishes from other countries, transforming gastronomy into a new way of illuminating the history, culture, and modern tourism potential of Khiva.
