The other Saturday Ukraine's biggest retail book market at Petrivka was in a shock: as is known, the Russian publishers' production composes 90% of its assortment.
Every week several hundreds new books mostly printed in Moscow and St. Petersburg appear there. However, because of a sharp devaluation of the ruble the publishers either raised sharply the prices of their products or stopped selling them for the time being. Thus, no single new item from Russia appeared in the Petrivka market last weekend. Due to this situation the leading domestic booksellers are likely to stop their activity in two or three weeks: they possess only scarce summer leftovers in their warehouses, but to reorient into selling Ukrainian publishers' production means for them to condemn themselves to rapid bankruptcy. Specialists calculated that despite the traditional stir at the beginning of a new school year sales volume fell 3-4 times. Another even more substantial decrease is expected to take place next week. Nevertheless, no single dealer is planning a trip to Russia for new book supplies as the situation with the Russian ruble is still vague.






