Moscow book fair draws crowds despite restrictions

Hundreds of Moscow residents ventured to an open-air book fair in Red Square on Saturday in a small sign of the gradual efforts to open up the Russian capital.

Although there is still a ban on public events, the book fair was permitted to go ahead under tight restrictions, such as chairs being spaced one metre apart and temperature checks at the entrance.

“You either mourn that the industry is in crisis or go and take part in the book fair with all the precautions in place,” said Natalia Eihwald from the Kompas-Gid children’s publishing house, one of about 180 publishers with stalls at the fair.

Some publishers did opt to stay away, however. “We don’t want to put our employees and our authors as well as our readers at risk,” said Pavel Podkosov, director general of the Alpina Non-Fiction publishing house. “Taking part would be like staging a carnival in a hospital ward, which doesn’t sound like much fun to us.”

Russia has recorded more than 458,000 cases of coronavirus, including 5,725 deaths.