Under pressure from civic activists, Kyiv City Council voted to preserve the last bookstore on the capital’s main boulevard, Khreshchatyk
Under pressure from civic activists, Kyiv City Council voted to pre serve the last bookstore on the capital’s main boulevard, Khreshchatyk, by extending a city lease to its owner, the company Znannya.
The move comes as Ukrainian-language publishers, authors, activists and artists rallied to prevent what was hyped as a planned raid by city officials of the two-story building at 44 Khreshchatyk.
At the same time, officials said the AST Russian publishing giant was eyeing the central location, where the bookshop has thrived for 75 years.
On Nov. 3, Znannya received a lease expiration notice from the city, which it interpreted as an order to vacate the premises by Nov. 10.
Znannya said the lease in question was signed in 1994, and included a vague stipulation that specified its termination date as expiring before “the beginning of Khreshchatyk’s reconstruction.”
As its formal reason for sending the notice, Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy Bloc City Deputy Alla Shlapak said on Nov. 7 that “more than one-and-a-half years has passed since Khreshchatyk’s reconstruction,” without a specific reference.
Furthermore, the Kyiv government wants to keep rental relations transparent and honest, she said.
Opponents said it was an eviction attempt.
Russia’s AST, which claims to publish 30,000 titles comprising every fifth book sold in the federation, expressed interest in the location, Shlapak said. AST operates more than 200 Bukva shops across Russia.
The tide quickly turned in Znannya’s favor, however.
On Nov. 8, Kyiv City Council voted to keep the store in government ownership after the Supreme Court ordered the Council to vote on a bid to privatize the bookstore by the “workers’ collective of the Znannya Limited Liability Company.”
Ninety deputies from “majority and opposition factions” supported a second motion forwarded by Council Secretary Oles Dovhiy to “save the bookstore by leaving it in collective ownership,” reported the City Council’s Kreshchatyk newspaper.
Only seven of the 120 Kyiv Rada members supported the privatization.
The paper reported the Council will vote on the store’s rent, at rates it is prepared to pay, at its next session. The next City Council session was scheduled for Nov. 15.
Three-year rent increases
Znannya Director Svitlana Varkholova said the store paid its monthly rent, which the city raised from $1,000 to $6,000 in the past year.
Company records shown to the Post indicated that $52,956 has already been paid for eleven months from the current year.
Despite the city’s assurances, Varkholova said she is concerned that further rent increases could more than double and reach $14,500 monthly.
Prior to the Nov. 8 vote, the Kyiv City Press Service reported the lease is likely to be renewed for at least a three-year term.
Shops drop drastically
The Znannya bookstore is the last surviving bookshop on Khreshchatyk, as about 20 have closed in the last 10 years, said Oleksandr Afonin, president of the Ukrainian Association of Publishers and Booksellers (UAPB).
The list of bookshops ousted off Kreshchatyk includes Druzhba, Mystetstvo (currently belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture), Noty and Planeta (on the corner with Prorizna Street), which is owned by the Ukrenergo national electric company.
Of 140 bookstores throughout Kyiv in 1991, only 36 are open for readers 16 years later. That number includes several book supermarkets.
Countrywide, the situation is almost disastrous, Afonin said.
In 1991 there were 3,000 bookstores across Ukraine; in 2007 there are around 500, according to the publishing association president.
With a population of 16 million, Netherlanders can shop at more than 1,600 bookstores, while 38 million Poles can buy books at 2,500 literary outlets. In neighboring Poland there is one bookshop for 10,000 inhabitants – 10 times better penetration than the one store per 100,000 inhabitants in Ukraine.
Bookshops remain the most popular places to buy books, according to a recent survey conducted by GfK Ukraine marketing research company and commissioned by the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF).
About 47 percent of Ukrainian respondents said they purchase books from stores. Book bazaars were the second most popular points of purchase for 41 percent of polymaths.
Poets, bards to the rescue
Massive media coverage and public support produced the unexpectedly positive outcome of the confrontation with city authorities, Varkholova said. The protests were held for several days before the Nov. 8 vote.
A similar public outcry and rallies by cultural activists earlier this year resulted in vendors being allowed to sell their Ukrainian-language wares, including literature, music and clothing, from atop tables at Kyiv’s Independence Square.
Znannya claims that books published in Ukraine comprise two-thirds of its assortment – a figure significantly higher than the more common market ratio of less than 10 percent made-in-Ukraine to 90 percent of books imported from Russia.
Besides Znannya, Ukrainian-language book seekers can buy literature at Kupidon Cafe (on the corner of Prorizna and Pushkinska streets), or from a few stalls at the Petrivka book market, Afonin told the BBC news service.
Publishing protectionism?
Revenues from book sales were $360 million last year, according to Afonin, but books published in Ukraine account for only $65 million.
The number of titles published in Ukraine has risen by 20 percent, however, most of the publishing revenue goes to the neighboring Russian market, which boasts $2 billion in sales.
Among the Ukrainian publishing industry’s primary problems is small print runs, Afonin said.
“Ten thousand new titles last year had a publication of less then 1,000 copies,” he said. “A book exists virtually on the market, when in fact it is not available.”
Producing a book in Ukraine is more expensive than in Russia due to a non-existing infrastructure, Afonin said.
As a result, most Ukrainian bookstores are either filled with Russian-made books or fully belong to Russian publishing houses.
“The lion’s share of profits made on book sales in Ukraine flow to Russia,” he said.
The state should support the domestic publishing industry because it cannot compete financially with Russia, he said.
“We lack the state’s support in creating the infrastructure, and for us it is not a matter of financial support – all we need is enough premises and tax benefits and credits at zero interest rates, as is practiced in most of Europe,” Afonin said.
Meanwhile, the entry of Russian and other investors into the Ukrainian publishing market is a good sign, said Iryna Kuchma, coordinator of IRF’s publications program.
“If it was not a profitable business in Ukraine, big bookstore networks, as Empik from Poland and Top-Kniga from Russia, would not open their stores here,” she said.
