Alexander Brychkin, general director of the Chitai-Gorod — Bukvoed network, told RBC in an interview that returning the merchandise to suppliers is mostly impossible, so the books have to be written off at a loss.
Throwing them in the trash is not an option either: Brychkin described such literature as toxic waste. The chain pays for disposal itself, with a contractor destroying the books in an industrial shredder on camera.
The costs go beyond disposal. The network bears the expense of pulling books from shelves, sending them to a warehouse, transporting and processing them. "A huge amount of work and rather large costs add up from all of this," Brychkin said.
A book is withdrawn from sale after the Russian Book Union notifies the chain that "there are suspicions about a particular book." Sales are halted until "the moment clarity arrives." Brychkin acknowledged that full clarity never comes: even if the Russian Book Union finds nothing, a parallel expert review may be under way at another organization.
Brychkin separately pointed to costs stemming from the law banning drug propaganda. Every Monday the Russian Book Union updates its register of books mentioning drugs, after which stores label and sticker the editions themselves. The chain has already labeled 2 million books and spent tens of millions of rubles on it.
Brychkin called for changing the procedure for expert reviews on "LGBT propaganda." According to him, a review "always arises suddenly," is not discussed in the manner established by law, and at that point the chain begins to be held liable. "We don't even have a chance to comply with the requirements of the law," he said. He proposed giving notice when a review begins and introducing certification for experts.
Brychkin described demand for the withdrawn books by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Boris Akunin as unnoticeable. Part of Akunin's print run is still sitting in the warehouse: it cannot be returned to the supplier and has not yet been disposed of. "In some sense it can be regarded as a special storage facility," the chain's head said.
In October, Roskomnadzor banned Olga Ptitseva's novels "The Two Hundred Third Day of Winter" and "The Spring of Water." According to media reports, the reason may have been signs of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations."