Buratino is the main character of the book "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino" (1936) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, which is based on the 1883 novel "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi. Buratino originated as a character in the commedia dell'arte. The name Buratino is derived from the Italian burattino, which means wooden puppet or doll.

The book was published in 1936, and Buratino quickly became hugely popular among children in the Soviet Union and remains so to this dayю. In other words, Buratino is one of the most popular characters of Russian children's literature. The story has been made into several films, including the animated 1959 film and the live action 1975 film.

Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (January 1883 – 23 February 1945), nicknamed the Comrade Count, was a Russian and Soviet writer who wrote in many genres but specialized in science fiction and in historical novels. According to Tolstoy, he had read Pinocchio as a child, but, having lost the book, he started re-imagining it many years later in an attempt to come up with a series of bedside stories for his own children. The resulting story turned out to be so original and became so loved by the writer's children, that he decided to put it to paper and publish it.

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