Russian publishers to participate in fair

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, FEB. 5. Leading Russian book dealers and publishers will take part in the Delhi World Fair for the first time in recent years in a bid to regain a foothold in the Indian market.

Russia's leading exporter of books and periodicals, MK-Periodica, biggest book trading house Biblio-Globus and publishing houses Folium, Russkij iazyk (Russian Language) and Raduga will display about 150 periodicals and close to 100 book titles at the 14th Delhi World Trade Fair held between February. 5 and 13.

A spokeswoman for MK-Periodica said that the Russian display will help revive interest in India towards post-Soviet Russia. It will be the biggest exhibition of Russian books and periodicals since the end of Communism - and censorship - in Russia. The periodicals, which range from children's magazines to scientific journals, target primarily Russian-speaking audiences in India, as most of them are in Russian, but many books on display will be in English and some also in Indian languages.

``We have studied the Indian market and found there could be a place on it for our books and periodicals,'' Ms. Elena Aslanova of MK-Periodica told The Hindu.

Before the Soviet Union broke up nine years ago Russian publishers used to bring out hundreds of titles in Indian languagues which enjoyed good demand in India due to low prices. The programme, financed from the Russian budget, folded up in 1992.

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