Source.

From the great literary tradition that exists in Russia comes disappointing news:

I would say today’s situation is the bottom line: about 60% of Russians do not buy books on a regular basis and do not borrow them, 70% of households do not have more than a few books. Over the decades, the infrastructure of reading has changed completely: in the 1970s two thirds of books came from libraries, today 81% of Russians do not use libraries at all-Boris Dubin, Russian sociologist

The problem has even reached the desk of the President.

President Dmitry Medvedev admitted two weeks ago that his son found books less interesting than the Internet, recounting how they found a version of Mikhail Lermontov’s classic novel A Hero of Our Time on the web.

“We searched for A Hero of Our Time on the Internet, a well-known book, a classic,” Medvedev told a meeting of the state science and culture councils on April 22. “We found it, no problem, downloaded it, and then the young man got the desire to have a look. But the book lies there, untouched.”