Censorship Restrictions ‘Far from Only or Most Important’ Reason for Decline in Russian Publishing Industry, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 26 – The evidence is clear, Russia’s Book Industry journal reports, “the book industry [in Russia] is dying at an accelerating pace,” with total circulation down by 26 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to a year ago, print runs down by 17 percent, and the number of bookstores down by almost that much.

            “But censorship restrictions are not the only and not the main reason” for these declines, the Not Moscow portal says. Instead, this decline reflects the economic situation: “People are running out of money and life in Russia is becoming too expensive to buy books at current prices.” Other needs take priority (nemoskva.net/2026/06/26/kot-findus-i-drugie-inoagenty-i-ekstremisty/).

            But the latter source says that the way that Moscow is currently moving against publishing is in some ways worse than censorship. Too many different parts of the bureaucracy are involved, publishers don’t know what is required, and some people are even urging that Soviet-style centralized censorship be restored.

            For better or worse, that isn’t going to happen, experts the portal cites say. The costs would be prohibitive to create such an expensive and ramified system at a time of budgetary stringency. As a result, uncertainties about what is allowed will continue or even grow, exacerbating the declines driven by economic stagnation and decline.