Tatar director Ilgiz Zainiev named best director at the Almaty Puppet Festival

Ilgiz Zainiev, a director at Tatarstan's Ekiyat State Academic Puppet Theatre, has won the Best Director award at the 4th International Almaty Puppet Festival 2026 in Kazakhstan. The prize was given for “Adamnar” (“People”), a production based on a work by Galimjan Ibragimov.

The play is performed in Tatar. The festival brought together 14 leading theatres from 11 countries, including Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Iran, Italy and France. The winning production was staged on 23 October at the State Academic Puppet Theatre in Almaty.

It is not the production's first success: it was previously nominated for the Golden Mask award, won Best Director at the Petrushka the Great festival in Yekaterinburg and was nominated for the Gabdulla Tukay Prize.