The Russian Book Union (RKS) will no longer publish the list on its website, according to a letter the organization sent to bookstores, Verstka reported. Libraries and stores will instead receive the list on request, a move the RKS calls a "compromise solution."
The list is still updated weekly, as before. Its most recent revision, on September 21, added 179 titles, among them Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel "Brave New World," Tina Turner's autobiography and Vitaly Kalgin's book "Hello, Tsoi! Letters and Documents from Personal Archives."
The register now contains more than 3,800 entries. It disappeared from the RKS website in the first half of August. At the time, a source in the organization told Verstka that publication had been suspended "by order from the presidential administration" because of the elections. The list was expected to be frozen until September 20 and then reopened.
Russia tightened its legislation on "drug propaganda" on March 1. The amendments require labeling of literary and artistic works that contain information about drugs. Distributing such works without a label carries fines of up to 600,000 rubles for legal entities.
In December, Litres said it had withdrawn about 4,500 books from sale because of the new requirements. After the law took effect, warning labels appeared in Russian bookstores on titles including Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," as well as books by Stephen King and Oscar Wilde.