Historical jump in sales: in Europe, frantically buying up books in Russian

Sales of books in Russian abroad in 2025 increased compared to the previous year, in Europe the growth was 30%, in Moldova — a record 40%. This is stated in the message of the press service of the publishing group "Eksmo-AST" in the telegram channel.

"For 9 months of 2025, the structure of Eksmo-AST's foreign sales (excluding Russian marketplaces) is as follows: Kazakhstan holds the lead with a share of 35% (+6% here and further in rubles by 2024), Europe (EU countries) overtook Belarus for the first time, taking second place with a share of 20% (+30%), Belarus dropped to the third position with a share of 17% (-31%). The United States occupies 7%, Moldova — 6% (+40% in rubles and +49% in units), other countries make up 15%," the report says.

Eksmo-AST believes that several factors contributed to the "historic leap" in sales at once: a strong portfolio of new Russian-speaking authors; an established distribution system; compliance with Russian and EU legislation; and high quality publications.

"Today, books in Russian find readers in all countries and on different continents: in Asia, South and North America, Europe. Forming proposals for foreign partners, we try to present all the diversity of the literary landscape in Russia: from everyone's favorite classics to works by contemporary authors in different genres," said Evgeny Kapyev, General Director of Eksmo Publishing house.

As EADaily reported, 170 books of Russian classics worth $3.3 million were stolen in the European Union. Books of Russian classics were stolen in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Germany and Switzerland. Mostly the works of Alexander Pushkin were stolen, as well as books by Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Gogol. Criminals sometimes left fakes behind.