Sergei Karnaukhov called for the Russian State Library’s leadership to be dismissed after a literary event called LitREIV. Ekaterina Mizulina also criticized the event and suggested that library books might have been damaged or taken. No evidence of missing books was presented.
The event took place on the night of November 1. The Eksmo-AST publishing group and the library organized music and literary performances in reading rooms. The publisher estimated attendance at around 3,000 people.
The library said the aim was to attract younger readers. The organizers said they had taken safety precautions and that the library had suffered no damage.