The publisher Polyandria No Age confirmed that the books were banned by order of the agency, which maintains the federal register of prohibited information. The portal 'Year of Literature' replaced its material about 'The Spring of Water' with a deletion notice on October 7.
The notice, citing a Roskomnadzor letter dated October 2, said the book was added to the Unified Register of Prohibited Information and the Register of Book Expertise of the ERC RKS and 'must be removed from public space on the territory of the Russian Federation.'
The portal had already removed the page about the first part of the dystology on June 16. According to The Blueprint, the basis was a Roskomnadzor decision dated June 8. The reason may have been signs of 'propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.' There is no independent confirmation of this version.
Polyandria No Age removed both books from its website and deleted some of its Telegram channel posts about the dystology. The pages for the works disappeared from the Litres and Chitai-Gorod stores. The writer confirmed the books had been withdrawn from sale.
'The Two Hundred Third Day of Winter' was published in 2024, and 'The Spring of Water' in 2025. The dystology is set in an alternative Russia where an eternal winter has set in and the Party of Cold rules. Food is distributed by ration cards, a curfew is in effect, 'cold enforcers' monitor compliance with the bans, and dissenters are sent to a freezer chamber.
The protagonist, Nyuta, is a biologist forbidden to leave the country because the authorities demand she develop frost-resistant plants. When yellow daffodils begin to bloom among the snowdrifts, the opposition is blamed. An underground organization called 'Thaw' operates in the country, whose members try to resist the Party of Cold.
As The Insider found, in August 2025 the novel 'The Two Hundred Third Day of Winter' was included in the long list of the all-Russian literary 'Reader's Prize.' It selected 87 works by contemporary Russian authors based on reader demand in 51 libraries across the country and on the Litres platform.
The portal 'Year of Literature,' which operates with financial support from the Ministry of Digital Development, had published a review of the first part of the dystology before the ban, and in March 2025 posted a fragment of the second book, calling it a hopeful dystopia. It has now been deleted.
The ban on Ptitseva's works is the latest episode of pressure on the Russian book market. Since 2022, at least 600 book titles have disappeared from sale for censorship reasons. After criminal cases were opened in May 2025 against employees of the publishers Popcorn Books and Individuum, stores and publishers withdrew another 153 titles, including works by Fredrik Backman, Ursula K. Le Guin and Lyudmila Ulitskaya.