Russia is deliberately attacking printing houses and publishing warehouses. Ukraine’s book industry has suffered enormous losses.
On July 19, warehouses of Knigolav and MISON burned down in Kyiv, and the Konvy printing house and the offices of ARK.UA publishing house suffered significant destruction.
At Konvy, printing and binding equipment was destroyed, office premises were burnt out, nearly 250,000 school textbooks for grade 9 were completely lost, and hundreds of thousands of books were damaged.
This is a key printing house for many Kyiv publishers.
According to the Ukrainian Book Institute, in July alone, Russia destroyed over 1.5 million copies of books.
Of course, these attacks are not accidental.
While the loss of other goods or equipment can be covered by exports, we have nowhere to export Ukrainian books from. These are published and exist only in Ukraine, and they are our authors who write in Ukrainian for the Ukrainian reader.
The Russians understand very well the significance of the Ukrainian book for our people, which is why they target this area.
So if you wanted to buy a book but postponed for some reason, it is still worth doing so.
And do not ask me when the next print run of Principle or the next reprint of Sheptukha or Dotsya will be. You can see for yourself what is happening. We might have to live with a shortage of books for some time.
In the cover: On the night of July 19, due to another terrorist attack by Russia, the Knigolav publishing warehouse was destroyed. Photo: Knigolav
