Having created a theater in which many artists have found a home for life, director Viktor Panov has opened the way to art and to the spectator who wants to see a show that is not always polite but free. The Youth Theatre, founded in 1975, has gone from being banned from its performances in its native Arkhangelsk to performances at the Avignon Festival and the main Russian theatre award "The Golden Mask". In 1990 Viktor Panov organized an international street theatre festival that brings together companies from all over the world in the White Sea city. The festival was included in the UNESCO culture programme in 1992. Each of these steps reflects the desire to rise above reality, to unite fiction and reality, to create a world where everything is art and life is a miracle.
