Vladimir Grigoryev, vice director of the Federal Russian Agency for the Press and Mass Media declared: “We would like to thanks the organisers very much for having dedicated great attention to the participation of the Russian Federatione at the International Book Fair”. “Our objective was to acquaint the general public and publishers with Russian authors and their works. But above all we wanted to strengthen the cultural and humanistic international bond between Italy and Russia. Goals achieved”. The participation of Russia as Guest Country of Honour at the 24th Fair stemmed in fact from the visit of Mr Grigoryev to the 2010 Fair and was aided by its inclusion in the programme of the Year of Italian Language and Literature in Russia and Russian Literature in Italy, supported by the governments of the two countries.

The 2011 Fair closes with an extremely positive balance for Russia, that brought to Torino (at the Fair and outside) witnesses of the 20th century and emerging authors to tell the story of how a civilisation always at the centre of geopolitical scenarios is changing. This is demonstrated by the figures on the sale of books written by Russian authors and the packed presence of the public at the debates organised by the Punto Russia. The stand, inspired by the architecture and design of Soviet Constructivism, was widely appreciated also for the memorable reproductions of period posters of the era of the conquest of space in the 50th anniversary of the first human flight by Jurij Gagarin.

Great interest was aroused not only by meetings with well-known authors like Liudmila Ulitskaja, Julia Latynina, Sasha Sokolov, Viktor Erof'eev and Olda Sedakhova, but also with younger writers: Pavel Sanaev, Miriam Petrosyan, Zakhar Prilepin, Mikhail Elizarov, Julia Latynina. One of the most popular events was Recounting the Gulags: from Solzenitsin to Salamov, at which Marcello Flores, professor of history at the University of Siena, Francesca Gori, president of Memorial Italia, an organisation active in the defence of the memory of the gulags, and Anna Raffetto, Slavist and the editor for the publication in Italy of the book by Anna Politkovskaja The Russia of Putin, told, in a debate chaired by the foreign affairs editor of La Stampa Francesca Sforza the history of the gulags and explained how Russian literature contributed to spreading awareness of them. There was also a packed public at the meeting on Monday 16 May Conserving information: the library of the 21st century in which Evgeny Kuzmin, Alexey Kuzmin and Andrey Gelmisa discussed the role of libraries in our age and how librarians, if well trained, can act as guides in the jungle of information today.

2,500 books were on display at the Russia stand from publishers from Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other regions of the country that now, with the end of the International Book Fair, will be donated to the National University Library of Turin. The authors most requested were the classics: Anton Checkov, Fedor Dostoevsky and Lev Tostooy. Also much sought after were The Kolyma Tales, by Varlam Tichonovic Shalamov, Il Bene sia con voi! and Forever Flowing, by Vasilij Grossman and Nel centro dell'oceano di Aleksandr Sokurov. Among the Russian authors present at the fair some of those which sold the best were Liudmila Ulitskaja, with Daniel Stein, translator, Aleksej Bukalov with The Italy of Puškin, a Time of Women by Elena Cizova and A Mosca! A Mosca! by Serena Vitale.

Russia – in an innovation for a guest country - also dedicated a space in the Oval pavilion to the many small children who visited the Fair. Here the young children had the possibility to take part in recreational activities and meetings with Russian children’s authors, to taste typical products like the Blini, and to attend the projection of animated cartoons in Russian.