My name is Guram Makarashvili. Guro is a short form. I’m from the Republic of Georgia. Georgia is a poor country, and my wife and I come for a better life. She come two years before me. I have been here in Málaga for 13 years, and I was born in 1988. I came in 2011. I always like theater and puppets and masks, carnival masks and circus masks and native African tribal masks. I always like this world because it was something mystical and strange.

I like to surprise people. I can not drive a car for work because everybody can drive. I can not play guitar because everyone plays. I always wanted to surprise people. Make something different. Today we have to surprise people because we are living in the world where we have everything, and things are so easy.

I started puppets very late, here in Spain. I started doing puppets 7 or 8 years ago. I see puppeteer in the street on internet and YouTube and how people was looking with a face with surprise. When I saw this puppeteer, I feel something, I feel I like to do the same. I fall in love this profession.

Some Romanian friend of me, a puppeteer, he was acting in the street. When my daughter was little, 2 or 3 years old, she was always looking at him. So, I talked to him and we make good friends. He was here during maybe two years. I had an idea I want to do the same what this guy was doing. I wanted to build one puppet, my first marionette. I spend maybe one year thinking how to do it. It is impossible because it is very special. You have to know how to put the articulation of the arms or legs and the head, moving the body and the mouth, how to string the parts and make the control rods. You have to know how to do all of this. There are so many tutorials on YouTube, but every puppet has his personality. It’s impossible to make the same system for every puppet. You just have to find how to make each one. The puppets they have their own life.

I was doing this during one year and impossible! Nothing, nothing. And I had not time and no space. I was doing handmade things, and also I was painting and drawing and selling on the street, but I never liked this. I as a good drawer doing all of this, but I was not satisfied with myself. So, I met this guy and I want to do the same, but I can’t. I need to find someone to help me how to start. He left and maybe 2 or 3 years later, he come back again, and I tell him, “Please help me how to build the first puppet.”

The same day, I had my first puppet. He go to a China shop and buy every material that I needed, and we go to my house and he help me. He do everything for me. He showed me how to do everything with clothes, beard everything. He give me the puppet and speaker and tell me, “Go tomorrow work,” and then the next day he was gone. He was for me an angel, Jesus Christ for me.

From this day in February we had a festival, Semana Blanca. My puppet was an old guy with a black beard, and he was singing flamenco songs. The first day when I went outside, I was trembling with my hands, shaking. I don’t know to do it, how it works. My first time acting in front of people, and I was acting very bad, very ugly. I don’t know how to move. The manipulating was bullshit, very ugly. But the first day I make 100 Euros. The first day! The first sensation was very motivation because when I was selling my pictures, in one week I sell nothing, maybe 10 Euros. With music and puppets not for sale, just for voluntary tip, makes more money. In the summer, now I’m making about 100 Euros every night for 3-4 hours. When starts school again, everything goes down. Sometimes if I make 20 Euros, it’s good for me. With no people outside or rainy day, it’s bad.

I start In February and once he show me how to do the puppets, in one month I made 4 or 5 puppets. I don’t remember how many I made, but maybe 15. Not so much. I had a piano guy, a funky drummer. I make the drum with a sardine can. I made a puppet of a photographer here. The photo camera had a flash that worked. I have the Skeleton – male and female with a bikini, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Pinocchio and the Flamenco woman. I also have flamenco guitarist and Spanish guitarist with big sombrero. I have the drunk guy and the old guy. I don’t remember all of them. I have some that look like my friends. Everything is hand-made.

It’s a special sensation when I am performing. I like to look at people how they react. I have to do something realistic at the same time some tragic. The secret is you have to mix somehow the tragedy and comedy. I had some puppet, an old guy drinking with whiskey. He is walking. He is dancing. He drinks the bottle and falls down and wakes up, looks in the hat, it is no money and looks at the people saying, “Give me some money.” It’s so realistic, but people feel something, but at the same time they understand it is not real. Everybody feels sometimes down in the life, so they recognize the moment in them.

When I had the flamenco puppet, he was singing flamenco songs, old Spanish songs, I see old people crying. One old woman was crying and come and told me, “When I was young, my husband was singing this song for me, so it’s very special for me.”

For these moments, I feel that I don’t work for money. I work because I like my work. I’m satisfied what I am doing. It fills me for positive energy, and I don’t care about money.

When I go with my puppets, everyone watches. I went to some village where there was some concert and some band was playing on the stage, and I act with the children with the puppets. And I had looking at me more people than the music. Finally, the singer said something from the stage, “Look over there. The puppets are playing!”

I have a brother. He is ten years younger than me. When he born, I was ten years old. My father was never in home, all the time working. I was for my brother like another father. I had my daughter when I was 22. With children I have a special relation. They just enjoy the show. They don’t critique me. Adult

people look at me and tell me that I can’t fool them. For children everything is OK. They just enjoy the show. For me, it’s a comfortable audience. It’s character of each person. All children are different. Some children are scared. Some love. Some children want to break the puppet. When I see the children with bad energy, I watch carefully. Sometimes the parents don’t pay attention, and I stop the music. I don’t say anything. I have to have a lot of patience. Sometimes I have to stop because it’s impossible or people sitting right in front of the stage, so people can’t see.

For children, everything is real. They don’t know what is lie, what is reality, what is fantasy. For them, they trust everything like Santa Claus because it is life for them. It is natural. They just enjoy. They have no problems in the head how to pay the rent, what to eat tomorrow. They don’t care about these things. They just enjoy the life. They are my best public because they know how to enjoy. And I enjoy with them because I am free. When I have adult public, I’m a little stressed because I try to do everything correctly good, but with children I am open. I don’t care if I do something wrong or mistakes.

I think all of puppets I make have some part of me. Michael Jackson and Skeleton I didn’t build. They come from very big shop of puppets, the best, the number one of Europe, in Prague. I have one friend who was working in the shop over there. He was building the puppets. They made Michael Jackson puppets, but they don’t know how to string because they can not get the movements that I am doing now. So, my friend told the boss of shop, “I have one friend. He can fix the movements. So, let’s send one puppet to him to make a video tutorial.” For me it was maximum. I was teaching the best how to string Michael Jackson!

I feel more connected to the puppets that I make because they have some part of me. My first was very special for me. His name was Aurelio. He has a spirit inside. The old man with beard. Now he’s too old for work! He was so good. He was a big one.

Last summer I was working more time, but three or four hours is enough now. I need tools to work. The body is wood. The head is some special plasteline. You can manipulate it because it is very soft, but in a few days it becomes hard like stone. When I made my first puppet, the body I make with the old leg of a chair in the street. I knew story of Pinocchio, but I never read the book. Then I read the book and see that the carpenter who made Pinocchio made him from the leg of a chair! So, I was very connected with the story. Amazing.

Once I was making a piece of a puppet, and I had a hook with my puppet on the wall. It was 2 in the morning. Everybody is sleeping. I’m working quietly. I went for a smoke, and I look at my puppet and my puppet looks at me! I was a little paranoid. At some moment, the puppet fell down just a little bit on the hook. It made a little noise, and I was so afraid. It looked so real!

I make some birthday parties for children, but I don’t like it because they have so many things to enjoy, and they just look at the puppet two minutes and go away. The parents pay you for an hour and I feel so stupid because no one looks at you. I made two or three times but never more. On the street, I am free, and I earn sufficient money.

Here it feels impossible to work in Málaga. I was working in the port all time when I start puppets. I was one of the first artists who starts working the port. Only two or three people. Nobody. I was working maybe 6 years there. When they changed the laws, I go to Torremolinos starting last year, 2023. I started working on the beach. It was good. Not so many problems on the beach. Then I go to the City Hall and ask for permission of the city center. They told me no, but then I showed them what I’m doing, and they give me permission. They told me, “We have no place, but you are doing something special, so we like you to work here.” So, I work there.

The street is more free. I have no stress, and the public is different all the time. People dancing or crying. And the street is full of money. You just have to know how to collect it. If you are doing some nice show, you can work with this. Also, you have no schedule. You have no boss, no responsibility for a specific time. I am free. And no taxes! And Spain is the best place. The weather is good. And if you can make a little money, you can live quiet. You never can be rich, but you can live quiet, no problems, no stress, eat every day and sleep and enjoy the life.

I want to make my life more professional with this work. I want to work this work my whole life. Maybe I teach some course to offer diploma in puppet theater, maybe make some spectacular theater and do some shows, but I need money and time and legal documents, so it is hard.

Once happened I was drinking a beer in the street in Málaga, and I was with all my puppets over there. I had a little bottle of beer and the police wanted to give me a fine. It was maybe 5 years ago. He made the paper and asked about me. I give a photocopy of my passport.

He opened and said, “What the fuck is this? And you are drinking here.”

So, he writes a ticket. He asked me, “Where do you live?”

I tell him my address, and he says, “I don’t care.”

He asks me, “Where are you from?”

I tell him, “Georgia.”

He says, “I don’t care.”

I say, “If you don’t care why are you asking me?”

Then he says, “What are you doing now?”

I tell him, “Now I am doing puppets.”

He stops and looks at me, “What puppets?”

I tell him, “I have a flamenco dancer and old guy singing flamenco.”

So, he looks at me and asks me, “Can I see your puppets?”

“Yeah of course,” I say. I open and pick up my puppets.

He looks at my puppets and looks at me. He picks up his mobile and shows me a video of me acting with a small girl. She is dancing and the puppet is dancing with her. He says, “It’s you?”

I say, “Of course, it’s my puppet. Look, it’s me.”

He told me, “This is my daughter, and this woman is my mother. They saw you and all the night was talking about you.” He took the ticket and ripped it up. This was impossible. It was a great story.

I tell you I like my work. I don’t want to change nothing. Sometimes people ask me in the street, “Oh you are the puppet guy?” I don’t know them, but everybody knows me.

Once I was buying something in a shop, and one guy says, “Hey, I know you. I will pay for you!” I have many stories like this. I am very connected with my work.

I improvise all the time looking for new movements. Sometimes I create one new movement, and I think, “Oh, how it was? Let’s try again.” Just imagining and looking how to do these moves. Maybe just thinking for one month, “I want to do one movement, but how to do?” There is no universal law about this. It’s just practicing. There is no school for puppeteers. You can not study this. Like theater. Like life. Nobody tells you how to live. You have to improvise your life. No instructions.

Like I said, I like to surprise people. The puppets you can not see every day. It is very special work. And finally you don’t know who controls who – you them or they you!

Guram on social media

Instagram