Book publishing: National exhibition-fair "Books of Russia"

Around 500 publishing houses and book-selling organizations are going to participate in 13^th National exhibition-fair "Books of Russia", which will be held from 10-15 March in the pavilion №57 of the All Russian Exhibition Center. 

"This year the exposition’s area has increased by over 1000 meters compared to 2009. The event will bring together other 37 new publishing houses", - clarified the Director of exposition Nikolai Ovsyannikov.

He informed that the admission to the exhibition will range from:  50 rubles for adults, discount - 25 rubles, whereas children under 10 and students of vocational universities will be able to visit the fair for free.

The Deputy Head of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media (Rospechat) Vladimir Grigorjev said that for the first time within the framework of the “Books of Russia” exhibition they would celebrate the Day of Orthodox Book, and the fair would provide a wide variety of those editions. Among other key topics of an exhibition is the upcoming celebration of the 65^th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. On March, 14 the visitors of the expositions as well as invited veterans are going to enjoy war time songs. Other important dates to be marked at the exposition are – 150^th birthday anniversary of Anton Chekhov, 100^th anniversary of the death of Leo Tolstoy, 70^th birthday anniversary of Joseph Brodsky. To mark the Chekhov’s anniversary the exhibition will display works of the best Russian illustrators of his works.

"Around 80% books, displayed at the exhibition, have been published in Moscow. We are trying to correct this imbalance by providing grants to regional publishing houses, as well as free of charge exposition areas", - added Mr Grigorjev. He also announced the name of the honored guest of this year’s fair – Astrakhan oblast.

Vladimir Grigorjev reported figures, which unveil the statistics of book publishing in Russia. "We have successfully survived the crisis. 127,500 books came out in the last year – this figure beats that of 2008. However, total circulation of books reached 716 million copies, whereas in 2008 it amounted to 860 million", - stated Mr Grigorjev.