Bukva opens new chapter in Kyiv's retail book business
opened in the city center on Aug. 24. The three‑story mega‑bookstore’s owners say that business has been brisk, and they have been logging sales of about 2,000 titles a day since its opening.
That the store has found immediate success speaks volumes about the city’s need for a large, modern bookstore, they said.
Located at 11/61 Lva Tolshoho, the 845‑square‑meter store stocks more than 50,000 books, said co‑owner and founder Svetlana Zorina. About 90 percent of the books are in either Russian or Ukrainian. The remaining 10 percent are in English and other languages.
Bukva (a Ukrainian word meaning “letter”) is by far the largest retail bookstore in the country. It stocks titles covering more than 20 genres including fiction, political history, children’s books, poetry, computer science, photography, finance and mythology and a host of technology‑related books.
Zorina’s partners in the store include Vadym Hlushakov, a former co‑owner of Fashion Cafe and Stoned Baboon, and publisher Oleksandr Krasovitsky. While the trio say they are pleased with the initial sales figures, they say that they want the store to become known as “a place where people can purchase or order any book that has been published.”
Next week, the store will be able to special‑order books for customers. Russian‑ and Ukrainian‑language titles should arrive within two weeks, and books in other languages may take six weeks to arrive, Zorina said.
Zorina said that accepting special orders and locating obscure titles may be a challenge, but it is a service people want.
Hlushakov said that with the exception of bestsellers by authors like Andrey Kurkov and Stephen King, retail bookstores rarely carry more than one or two copies of a particular book – especially if the book was released more than five years ago.
“As a result, demand is determined by supply, instead of the other way around,” Hlushakov said. “People don’t know which books are out there unless they are on the shelves.”
Shoppers don’t have to comb through miles of aisles looking for a particular title. The store’s computerized database keeps track of what’s in stock, so that clerks can help shoppers find the book quickly. Database searches can be done by author or title.
To get books to the shop within weeks, the store relies on a complex network of 130 Russian and Ukrainian publishing houses and three distributors, including Orfey, one of the nation’s largest foreign‑language book distributors.
“It’s a logistical nightmare,” said Zorina. “Half of our day is spent on locating books and having them sent to our store in a timely manner.”
She said that part of the problem is that publishers and distributors often don’t use technology like faxes and email.
“It is difficult to order a large volume of books over a poor‑quality phone line,” she said. She said that cumbersome ordering techniques make it difficult to tell customers when the book they want will arrive, or even to guarantee that the correct volume would arrive.
Yet, she said, the problems come with the territory of being the city’s first “supermarket of books.”
A number of other bookstores in the capital, including Orfey and Dinternal, sell Ukrainian‑ and English‑language books. But Zorina refuses to consider them competitors.
“We don’t consider them competition, because competition occurs when the market is filled with products and services,” she said. There’s still plenty of room for all the booksellers, she said.
“Our shop’s opening didn’t affect the other businesses,” she said.
Orfey director Vlad Holub agreed, noting that the two stores operate differently.
“We are primarily a book distributor, especially for Bukva,” Holub said. “We are two completely different businesses.”
Bukva’s proprietors admit that book bazaars, like the Petrivka book market, have price advantages with regard to fiction and classics. But because of the large volume of books it carries, Bukva not only offers better selection but competitive prices for these specialized genres.
And as for customer service, Zorina considers the vendors who work Petrivka’s bookstalls “uncivilized.”
“I think book buyers will appreciate the civilized service that they can only get in stores like ours,” Zorina said.
Indeed some Bukva shoppers have applauded the store’s selection of books and customer service.
“You can’t find books on agriculture in English in other stores,” said English‑translator Elena Tatyan‑chenko, 35. “They have such a wide range of titles that suits almost every interest.”
Student Serhy Derch, 20, said that he enjoyed the convenience of asking the cashiers to locate a book. “It’s a good system, because I don’t waste my time looking for a book when it’s not here,” he said.
Some shoppers, like Salahuddin Harzem, 26, said that they were disappointed with the store’s floor plan, which consists of narrow, winding aisles and dimly lit corners.
“It’s confusing,” Harzem said. “I can’t find certain book sections and the aisles are too narrow.”
Hlushakov said the group relied on the same Kharkiv‑based interior designers who designed Fashion Cafe and Stoned Baboon. Bukva mixes hip, colorful decor, kitschy wall art with plenty of asymmetrical angles. In addition to three floors of books and a cafe on the second floor, space in the basement includes a live DJ, a small stage and a large‑screen where video and movie classics are shown.
The cafe offers snacks, salads and pizzas, and will be used to host literary discussions by visiting authors.
Hlushakov said that in addition to selling books, the store is “selling atmosphere. We wanted to create a place with a feel and a look that would make people want to spend time here,” he said.
