Our intrepid CEO Steve Bercu returned from Russia this week, where he was attending the Moscow International Book Fair. He’s been sharing his thoughts with us along the way. Here’s his wrap-up:
September 8–Book Fair
The fair was packed with consumers buying books and crowding around the booths. We headed for the International Lounge where I participated in a panel about marketing genre literature. There were a group of Russian authors and critics and three Americans, Peter Mayer, John Silbersack and I. It became apparent immediately that the Russians did not want to talk about marketing but, instead, wanted to talk about whether genre should be considered literature and who should get to decide what is what. Their take was that novels should be novels and that segregating anything by genre instead of by author diminished the author and his writing somehow. The Americans disagreed. Peter tried to talk about how it works in the US and the value we place on many different types of writing, but it looked to me like it did not impress too much.
The next panel was about the use of electronic means to promote books–e-books, blogs, etc. This panel had the three of us and Mark Krotov from F,S,G. The other three talked about the macro picture from the publishers’ viewpoint and I talked about the micro picture from the booksellers’ viewpoint. The discussion was lively and generated several questions from the audience, but I had the overall feeling that the topic has not yet become of major importance to the Russians.
When our panel ended, instead of zipping back to the hotel we got a chance to meet Moscow traffic. We crawled along for about an hour and a half until our hosts abandoned the attempt to reach the hotel and just took us directly to the Pushkin Museum where a reception was being held.
The reception was sponsored by the mayor of Moscow and was in honor of the Italian delegation to the book fair (Italy is the country of honor for 2011). We heard speeches of welcome from the mayor and then had a huge buffet. I had a chance to talk with the Italian Minister of Culture and admire his terrific suit. It was obvious who all the Italians were. They were the ones who looked like they stepped out of a fashion magazine. I also got to spend some time talking to Boris Esenkin, who owns Biblio Globus, the huge store I visited a few days ago. He told me that it is about 95,000 square feet and he is doing a major remodel to add a cafe and all sorts of electronic lookup stations and other things to make the store the “center of his community”. It was great to hear that the trend toward the bookstore as the center of the community is taking off in Russia too.
The Read Russia group then got a private tour of the Pushkin museum. It was truly amazing to think about an entire museum being devoted to a single writer. The building was magnificent and the objects included covered every bit of Pushkin’s short life. He is considered the father of Russian literature universally here though I doubt he would be thought of like that by average American readers. The translation of the tour was also amazing–done by a British Phd candidate doing his doctorate on Pushkin. I think I know more about Pushkin now then I have ever even imagined.
September 9–last day at the book fair
This was a full day with three panels for me and a meeting of the Read Russia Committee. The panels went all over the place with the role of traditional book stores in the future and the impact of e-books (none so far in Russia) and other electronic media on bookselling. It’s hard to say where the Russians are with this since their ecosystem is controlled in a way that I did not really understand. I did discover that they do not have fixed prices, but their prices seem to be flexible by customer type and distance from Moscow (though that was hard to follow). They do not have much in the way of marketing in the ways that we do though Biblio Globus seems to be moving our way. Publishers have their own book stores many of which sell only that publisher’s books.
The meeting didn’t break up until they turned off the power in the exhibition hall and threw everyone out (though Vladimir Grigoriev, our host and meeting leader, gets to set his own rules due to his high position in the government). Afterwards Ginger and I headed to the Georgian restaurant that Vladimir chose so we would understand that Russians really are not hostile to Georgians despite what the US press has to say. The food was great. Georgia produces excellent wine and makes a “vodka” that was just like grappa. We feasted on plate after plate of all sorts of delicacies and drank so many toasts that I was surprised to be able to move when it was over.
We headed back to the hotel but the evening didn’t end there. John Silbersack, Peter Mayer, Ginger and I decided to go out yet again and see what one of the famous “night clubs” might be like. So we headed off to the center of town to a place that was filling up at midnight with lots of foreign men and was already filled with Russian women. It was a taste of Russia that definitely did not include discussions about minimum fixed prices or e-books. We stayed around for about an hour during which I second hand smoked about 60 packs of cigarettes before heading back to collapse.
September 10–last full day in Moscow
This morning Vladimir has arranged a tour of the Kremlin for us. It is an overcast, grey day that is more or less what I had expected for the entire time (but happily was not). Inna picked us up and took us to the Kremlin Armory. It is a fantastic collection of weapons, carriages, jewels, crowns, clothes, etc. There were rooms full of each. The overall impression was one of great talent, great wealth (maybe excessive opulence), and a few guesses why the Russians got tired of funding it all.
After the Armory we wandered around the Kremlin and finally Peter Blackstock suggested visiting the Mayakovsky Museum. Peter also served as our guide and gave a full story of Mayakovsky’s life and works and untimely death. The museum is sufficiently odd to make it extra interesting (on top of the description of Mayakovsky’s life that is there). They had the actual room where he killed himself–a little macabre (though the room was plain enough). Ginger and I went on after that to buy some gifts, get some dinner, and then return to the hotel to get ready for our wake up tomorrow to get to the airport and head back to Washington.
The trip has been a wonderful learning experience and opportunity to meet some incredible people. It really pleases me to know that the Read Russia Board will continue to meet so I can keep up contact with all of them. There are many people to thank for this opportunity–Vladimir Grigoriev from the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, Svetlana Adjoubei from the Yeltsin Foundation, Kirill Shaskin and Inna from Academia Rossica, and, of course, Peter Kaufman from Intelligent TV for getting me involved in the first place. Finally I would like to thank the weather. We opened up with 4 days of sunshine in the mid-60’s followed by a few overcast days, but without rain until some sprinkles yesterday (but nothing to get in the way of anything). Today it is pouring as I get my suitcase ready for the flight back. It could not have been better.
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