RusskieKnigi || Russian bookstores on the Internet

Russian bookstores and books on the Internet

General considerations

So far, no bookstore has a very large selection. Typically, they have whatever was published in the last year or so. Moreover, the selection in different stores is complementary; e.g. some books by a certain author could be found in one store, and others in another store.

If you are in a hurry

Stores in Russia: www.o3.ru, OXIRIS.com, 24x7.ru, Books.ru , Lira.ru, , , ,

Stores in the US: www.st-p.com, www.domknigi.com, www.kniga.com, www.kamkin.com
www.rbcmp3.com, N&N Bookstore , Ardis, Books Without Borders, , , , ,

Online resources: , , ,
Moshkov Library (and some mirrors: a, b, c, d)

Contaci Information, contact info, etc. Message Board

Stores In Russia

Prices are low (a typical hardbound 500 page novel would typically cost $2-3, sometimes less); but shipping is costly. Generally, it takes a while to assemble your order, except for a relatively small number of immediately available books. Some of the stores have very cheap or even free "courier" service, but that is typically limited to Moscow and/or St. Petersburg.

Prices are in rubles; for the current ruble/$ rate go here. All the stores below do accept credit cards. In some of them the payment process is confusing, as they take payments through a third-party "accounting site". It may look as if you are required to have a special kind of account, but in reality you will be able to use your normal credit card.

Bookstore Prices there Shipping to a US address Other

www.o3.ru
Average Best service. In addition to various express carriers and Russian snail-mail, has "Airmail" option - pretty economical (about $10 for an average order) and fast (7-10 days, in my experience) Best, most detailed information about books, reviews, etc. Nice site if you have decent computer; on slower machine, it's a nightmare because of the huge number of features. The number of books is ok.

OXIRIS.com
Average Russian post service (slooow but cheap), Express mail ($$$) Supposed to be a superstore; so far, sells books, CDs and tapes. Best selection of books (30k or so), but almost no information about them.

24x7.ru
Average UPS only, that includes shipping to CIS countries as well :-((( The delivery thing makes it usable only if you want to send something to friends in Russia. Potentially good site, but not as advanced and useful as o3on.

Books.ru
Average ? Mostly computer books; several links to the online bookstores of the same system, with pretty much the same selection.

www.Lira.ru
High, but include shipping Airmail shipping (7-10 days) for "free" Average selection. I am not convinced that, considering overall cost of books and delivery time, it's worth it. I'll save it for the case only they have a book I really want.

Bookstore	Prices there	Shipping to a US address	Other
www.o3.ru	Average	Best service. In addition to various express carriers and Russian snail-mail, has "Airmail" option - pretty economical (about $10 for an average order) and fast (7-10 days, in my experience)	Best, most detailed information about books, reviews, etc. Nice site if you have decent computer; on slower machine, it's a nightmare because of the huge number of features. The number of books is ok.
OXIRIS.com	Average	Russian post service (slooow but cheap), Express mail ($$$)	Supposed to be a superstore; so far, sells books, CDs and tapes. Best selection of books (30k or so), but almost no information about them.
24x7.ru	Average	UPS only, that includes shipping to CIS countries as well :-(((	The delivery thing makes it usable only if you want to send something to friends in Russia. Potentially good site, but not as advanced and useful as o3on.
Books.ru	Average	?	Mostly computer books; several links to the online bookstores of the same system, with pretty much the same selection.
www.Lira.ru	High, but include shipping	Airmail shipping (7-10 days) for "free"	Average selection. I am not convinced that, considering overall cost of books and delivery time, it's worth it. I'll save it for the case only they have a book I really want.

Stores In the States

Prices are much higher than in Russia, but still lower than what you see for a book published in the US (the same 500-page novel would cost, say, $7.95). The shipping, on the other hand, is way faster and cheaper (if you ship to a US address, that is).

Bookstore	Prices there	Shipping to a US address	Other
www.st-p.com	Tend to be low	UPS ground; cheap	Confusing site design that makes for rather inconvenient shopping. The prices are right, though, and even shipping cost is somewhat lower there. The choice is decent.
www.domknigi.com	Normal, despite the claims	same	Not a whole lot of books, and the prices are about average
www.kniga.com	Normal	$3 any order	Decently designed site; the choice of books is ok. The service, in my experience, is pretty good. Currently, BTW, any purchase gives you access to RBC's collection of mp3!
www.rbcmp3.com	High	same	No books, only CDs, tapes, and MP3 files, but what the heck...
www.kamkin.com	Normal	same	This is the largest brick-and-mortar Russian bookstore in the US, but their site is best described as nascent. Very few books are available online (4/19/00 category Fiction had 10 items). Generally, the site is rather half-hearted. Let's hope that will change.
	Normal	$4 any order	Pretty decent bookstore. Rather complicated (optional) membership program.
	High	?	Web store of the well-known publishing house in Ann Arbor. Books in Russian, and translations into English.
Books Without Borders	Normal	?	Russian section of international bookstore. Mostly children's books.
EastView	?	?	Incredibly rude staff. That includes web designers, I guess, since they don't offer you browsing - you have to search to see anything. I didn't bother.

Russian electronic libraries, etc.

Resource	Comments
	News of electronic libraries. Project of Russian journal with the regular updates.
Moshkov Library Some of the mirrors: a, b, c, d	The largest Russian electronic library. About 2 Gb of texts (plain text!). A whole lot of mirrors across xUssr, but they tend to be slightly outdated. On the other hand, the main site is often overloaded, so if you are looking for a text that was placed in the library long time ago, mirrors do make sense. Some of the sections there: Contemporary Russian Prose, Prose in translation, Russian Sci-Fi
	Children's library. A collection of links organized by age group. Not all of the recommendations are hyperlinked to the texts. Some of the linked texts are elsewhere, but some texts are only on this site.
	As you may or may not know, Russian sci-fi is in the middle of unprecedented boom - a whole lot of really good writers are currently working, and the level of typical Russian sci-fi novel is consistently higher than that of the translated book (especially considering what is translated and how ). This site has personal pages of a number of Russian sci-fi writers, including full-length books and fragments of such, off-line interviews, etc. A whole lot of mirrors. (e.g., sf.glasnet.ru)
	Quite a bit of information on books, and generally on current Russian culture, on this site. Especially nice (IMHO) features are: Kniga na zavtra', Chtenie bez razboru, Kul'turnyi gid
	Current Russian culture, in (relatively) independent newspaper. Sometimes ok, but not as interesting, as the previous site.

Contact Information

This list is not complete. New stores appear, etc. Any additional information is appreciated, as well as your comments about the stores featured here, your experiences with them, etc.
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