Meet the 'sandy' Harry Potter and SpongeBob of Burgas

Burgas, in Bulgaria, holds the 14th edition of the Sand Sculptures Festival

The 14^th edition of the Burgas Sand Sculptures Festival is just around the corner. The festival will start in the first week of July and will feature 13 sculptures of popular literary and film characters. This year’s edition is called “Kids wished for” and there will be sand sculptures of Harry Potter, SpongeBob SquarePants and The Little Mermaid.

The festival takes place on an area of ​​five acres, and its sculptors use 5.6 tons of special, rain-resistant sand every year to create all sorts of characters. From bizarre creatures, castles, towers, and all kinds of sea dwellers to princesses, carriages and exotic animals. Some sculptures have even reached a height of more than 8 meters.

Consequently, the festival has been recognised by the European Festivals Association and was awarded the “Innovative Festival” label for 2017-2018.

All sculptors this year are Bulgarian and a lot of them are from Burgas

The mayor of Burgas, Dimitar Nikolov, said in a press release that in the beginning, all the sculptors were foreigners, however, over the years the festival has helped to create a local scene in this artform. This fact is very apparent, as the entries and names of the sculptors shift from year to year, with Bulgarian participation steadily increasing.

The choice of characters and themes is unique this year too. It is based on a survey conducted by the municipality of Burgas among children aged 7 to 12 to determine their favourite fictional characters.

The list of sculptors and sculptures-to-be looks like this:

Pippi Longstocking – Ani Zlateva

Harry Potter – Joro Zlatev

Madagascar – Vlado Veselinov

Vaiana(also known as Moana) – Radko Valchev

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir – Igor Hristov

The Land Before Time’s Littlefoot – Kalin Dilovsky

SpongeBob SquarePants – Damyan Bumbalov

The Amazing World of Gumball– Dobrin Vatev

The Little Mermaid – Kaloyan Todorov

The Owl House – Atanas Stoyanov

Raya and the Last Dragon – Daniel Kanchev

Beauty and the Beast – Peter Petrov

Alice in Wonderland – Ognyan Petkov