Ethnopark (conception). Part III

Let’s keep our little joint attempt and continue our imaginative travel through the Ethnopark – the museum of accessible and live history. Let’s try «to drop in for tea» to our ancestors, who created by their own hands the usual life they lived within, thousands and thousands years ago.  This is the life we call the history today.

A high white-stone wall, being lost to view in the East and the West, meets us by three entrances: the Central one with huge gates where we have already had a chance to enter through, the Western and the Eastern ones covered with transparent towers rising to the sky in the both-side edges of the Ethnopark wall.

Having entered from the western side, we find ourselves in enormous transparent hemisphere. It stretches for the whole length of the Ethnopark being located in parallel to the high street. Here the interactive museum the largest in the world is. So, does it mean we have found, at long last, the crock pieces – historically priceless, but really worthless? Not a bit! We smoothly fell to the charming power of the high-tech world and built-in visual innovations. Traditional historical museum pieces are utterly lacking here. Everything is founded on plasma panels, projectors, and motion sensors. The live endless installation, which you are the part of now, envelops us from the first step till the last breath in the air of this magic environment. The history really becomes alive here. Visual interactive historical scene of action captivates a visitor and allows him to take part in this fascinating staging coming closely to it the most possible. By correcting and leading you through different real historical scenarios, the multitude of sensors make you are absorbed by this live history. It lets trying it with your own hands. Imagine, for example, that you attend and accompany Attila’s diplomatic negotiations, or you come to meet a certain caravan which is historically significant – that one which was sent to Bulgaria of the Volga by Baghdad caliph Al-Muktadir; or imagine that you manage the job of the shipbuilding yard of the Volga Bulgaria. The history – is a process. And what the Ethnopark allows you is to be always inside of this process you take part in and manage with.

So, now we find ourselves in front of the Eastern entrance, at the second museum’s door. It’s breathtaking and spectacular as much. Eastern and nomadic people glare in front of us in faces and events. Here the great past is. It allows feeling as if you are the indispensible part of these electronically revived, life-size characters as well as fragments of everyday life of average people, warriors and nobility. It allows understanding that we are direct descendants and bearers of them as of today. Diverse panoramic sights visually and wordlessly tell us about different historical episodes unfolding before our eyes, about mass battles significant events in historic live dynamics.

All the sculptures are wax figures with natural faces. They are obligatorily surrounded with their proper environment. The adoption of Islam by Bulgarian tribes in the 7^th century, the Bulgar army victory over the Mongols in the 13^th century, Bulgar scientists’ discoveries – all of this are available to you in faces and frozen action.  Similarly to the west wing, the Oriental museum represents a large interactive installation. However, if you study the history through vivid images in its western part, the eastern wing gives a priority to the material embodiment of these images. Walking along the exposure, you are to meet the original detailed models of the old eastern cities – like Samarkand, Istanbul, Cairo... Every street, every house, every little element is available in full view. They are an open book for you now.

It’s very unlikely, but if it turns that for all that you feel a bit tired, walking in the streets of cities, in the palace and the square in front of him, in interactive museums, then there is a large-scale park complex waiting for you. Visitors can relax here. But what is a holiday without impressions? Even here, the Ethnopark doesn’t cease to be a touristic intellectual park. Without excessive imposing and burdening, the Ethnopark allows you to have just a nice and aimless walk in the fresh air. You are able just to stroll in the verdure of the eastern garden of a noble man, walk the alleys in the fresh air, relax on a bench in the «Philosophers’ Path» or «Alley of Heroes». Sculptures and staging pieces, touch screens and audio guides which can be switched on by the visitor's desire will tell him where he is and who he sees now. Moving from the fountain to fountain or from a beautiful arrangement to an interesting sculpture with attractive lighting, we can touch the history itself, but this case – without immersing in it.

What magic is hidden in the park complex else?
Ok, you are welcome to the real ancient nomad camp then. Not the one which «shows the supposed ancient nomadic way of life», but the one which lives the real ancient nomadic life. From dawn to dusk. Year-round. There are no actors who play the Khan, his guardians, his suit and ordinary soldiers. They do not go to sleep or eat in another place. It is no installation. It's almost a real life or a small piece of this historic life, embodied on the Ethnopark side. We can see closer, than we could see returning for a thousand years ago in the past, our ancestors’ settlements, our roots and origins. And surely, we can see and join, try to evaluate and assume all the artistic «historical truths» we knew before, if we feel that our history knowledge need rebooting.

Now we have seen and felt, imagined and tried the surprising and impressing Ethnopark in a whole. Unfortunately, similar parks of intellectual and cultural tourism do not exist in the world today.

The key idea is not just creation of such park. The point coming side by side with this idea is to give each of us and those who will come after us, the ability to confidently declare, «I was there, I saw this, I was involved in this or that event». Finally, people have right for an opportunity to replace such hesitant speech like «I heard about it, I read about it» with more certain phrases filled with firm belief in true life that our direct ancestors lived. You must admit, «was», «seen» and «engaged» are more valuable reasons to feel a descendant and heir of many-many centuries, great events, great personalities and great stories.