23 animated dragons have found a new home in Vazrazhdane Park in the Bulgarian capital Sofia in the first exhibition of its kind in Bulgaria. The concept and layout of the mythical creatures are Bulgarian, and the exhibition introduces visitors to dragons from around the world.

"Our goal is to present images from the mythologies and legends of the Far East, Japan, Korea, the Iberian Peninsula, the northern parts of Europe, Slavic mythologies. The dragons in the exhibition correspond to the legends from these parts of the world”, explains Tsvetelina Grozdanova, co-manager of the agency organizing the show. “Dragons from fantasy books, movies and video games are also included. We also have two "talking trees" - they tell stories in which the main characters are dragons."

The exhibits in the displayentitled “Living Dragons – Wintertale”  are 2 to 8 metres high. Each of the figures has a description of how they originated in different cultures or what fantasy world they are from.

"The greatest interest is caused by the dragons that children can ride - these are dragons from films that they often watch on television”,continues Tsvetelina Grozdanova. “The largest dragon in northern mythologies is interesting. Dragons from Europe and those known to European peoples are very often associated with power and energy, their characters are rather evil, they are quite cunning and skillful and are more fearsome than Eastern dragons, because in the philosophy of the East, their images are rather good-natured, they bring happiness. So dragons, which are scarier and more sinister, are more interesting to children.”

All figures in the exhibition are animated, they can move and make different sounds, which arouses genuine interest. Before coming to Sofia, the interactive monsters were shown in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Ukraine, where they were extremely well received and drew a huge number of visitors.

The dragons will stay in the Bulgarian capital until March 15, afterwards they will visit several other big cities in Bulgaria, and will then start their journey around the world again.

The exhibition is organizzed in compliance with all anti-epidemic measures.

Photos: BGNES