Historic St. Petersburg Bookstore Hit with $10K Fine for Selling LGBT Literature Amid Nationwide Crackdown

A judge in St. Petersburg has fined the century-old bookstore Podpisniye Izdaniya 800,000 rubles (approximately $10,000) after ruling it was promoting «LGBT propaganda,» as reported by local media on Wednesday.

The bookstore was accused of breaching Russia’s anti-LGBT legislation by selling works from authors such as Susan Sontag and Olivia Laing. These allegations arose following an April raid during which law enforcement directed the bookstore to withdraw 48 titles.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Kuibyshevsky District Court declared the bookstore guilty of distributing prohibited content, according to the local news organization Fontanka.

This decision is part of a broader initiative to crack down on independent bookstores throughout Russia. In recent weeks, authorities have conducted raids in bookshops located in Moscow and Novosibirsk, while three current and former staff members of the country’s largest publishing house face charges for allegedly spreading «LGBT propaganda» and participating in «extremist» activities.

Since its initial prohibition of «LGBT propaganda» in 2013, Russia has widened the scope of this ban to encompass all forms of media, including literature, as of late 2022. The legislation forbids representations of same-sex relationships and what officials term «non-traditional lifestyles.»

While the government asserts that it does not keep an official list of banned books, numerous extensive unofficial lists have been circulated by journalists and booksellers. To avoid potential legal issues, many prominent booksellers have taken steps to remove LGBTQ+ titles from their inventory in advance.