Latvia banned the import of Russian books on September 1. That won’t get them off the shelves: booksellers say shipments will just clear customs elsewhere in the EU.

A Latvian ban on imports of certain goods from Russia and Belarus took effect on September 1. The restrictions cover not only clothing and children’s toys but also books. Latvian authorities say the ban is meant to sever economic ties with Russia and Belarus: Latvia intends to deprive both countries of some export revenue. The ban is also aimed at combating Russian propaganda in a country where nearly 38% of the population considers Russian their native language. At Meduza’s request, Latvian journalist Roman Shmelev examines how the new law will affect Latvia’s Russian-language bookstores, which were already hit earlier this year by an increase in the value-added tax on Russian-language books.

On the last weekend of summer, one of Riga’s bookstores has few customers. A boy of about 9 walks along the shelves, reading passages to his mother from a Russian-language book on the history of ancient Rome.

“Should we get it?” the mother asks.

“Wait,” the son says. “I’m choosing between the book on Byzantium and the one on Rome. This one has a lot about politics and history; that one has more about monuments and art.”

The boy says he wants to think carefully about how to spend his savings. He offers his mother a deal: “Let me buy the book about Rome with my own money, and you buy me the one about Byzantium.”

The book on the Eastern Roman Empire costs almost 50 euros; the one on Rome is half the price. After talking it over, the family decides to put off the pricier one “until next time.” They are sure they will still be able to buy books printed in Russia after September 1.

“Why would they disappear?” asks a salesperson at MnogoKnig, Latvia’s largest bookstore chain, sounding surprised. “Selling them isn’t banned.”

How Latvia is trying to stop imports from Russia and Belarus

The book ban is part of a broader push to reduce economic ties with Russia and Belarus. In addition to European Union sanctions, Latvia has already banned imports of vegetables, fruit, grain, and animal feed.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, imports of all goods from Russia and Belarus into Latvia have fallen by more than 90%. Imports totaled 2.13 billion euros in 2022; in 2025, they came to just 193 million euros, or 0.8% of Latvia’s imports.

Latvia still imports some Russian and Belarusian food and drinks, but the authorities plan to extend the ban to these products as well. Cookies, candy, beer, and soft drinks could be next.

Latvian authorities began cutting imports from Russia and Belarus in 2024. But goods made in those countries still turn up on store shelves, brought in through other EU countries that have no such bans. The same will probably happen with books.

Even as they impose the bans, Latvian officials acknowledge that they will not make Russian and Belarusian goods disappear from shelves altogether. One of the main goals is to signal to the public that the state considers it unethical to support producers in aggressor countries.

To push businesses to drop Russian and Belarusian suppliers on their own, Latvian authorities decided to publish a list of the companies still trading with them. The hope is that those companies’ customers will take their business elsewhere.

According to Latvia’s Central Statistical Bureau, the list currently runs to 170 companies.

Will Russian and Belarusian books really disappear from stores?

Russian-language books can be found in many bookstores across Latvia — not only in Riga, but also in Jurmala, Daugavpils, and Liepaja, cities where Russian speakers make up a significant share of the population.

Rihards Jerums, who owns the small Riga bookstore Intellectual Book (Intellektualnaya Kniga), is convinced the new ban will not change his selection at all. He buys his stock from a wholesaler operating under the MnogoKnig brand, one of the biggest importers of printed matter from Russia.

The chain’s mascot is a cartoon bookworm named Fedya, whom the company’s website calls “the true guardian of the Russian word in Europe.” That’s partly true: MnogoKnig stores operate in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, and Cyprus, and legal entities with similar names are registered in Germany and Poland. Alexander Korabelnikov, a Latvian citizen, founded those companies.

Another major importer of Russian books in Latvia operates under the Polaris brand. Representatives of both companies declined to comment.

Asked by a Meduza correspondent whether shipments of Russian books would continue, employees at stores in both chains were evasive, saying the companies were “looking for a way.”

“They’ll simply clear customs in another country instead of Latvia. It’s already happening. It’s easier that way,” says Jerums. He thinks the ban “makes no sense at all”:

Arina Lindanen, who owns the Riga bookstore Vilki Books, says the ban will not change what she stocks but will complicate logistics for bookstores, since they will have to source books in other European countries. She expects prices to rise “by about 1–2%” as a result:

Lindanen says Latvian policy on Russian-language books is having a serious impact on her business: after the reduced value-added tax rate on such books was scrapped, prices rose and sales fell. “We would have had to close the store if we hadn’t found an investor,” the Vilki Books owner says.

Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže has acknowledged that the import ban could push prices higher, but she is confident that books once brought in from Russia and Belarus can be replaced with products from other countries. Booksellers are certain she is wrong: outside Russia and Belarus, they say, Russian-language classics are not printed.

“In Europe, they publish émigré literature that can’t be published in Russia. But they don’t publish the classics at all. It isn’t profitable,” Jerums says.

Lindanen says she already leans toward cheaper editions when deciding what to stock: “We’re trying to get better at choosing — to find editions where the price, the paper quality, the design, and the notes balance out so that they aren’t too expensive. Nobody is going to buy The Master and Margarita for 40 euros.”

Both Lindanen and Jerums say Russian-language classics are in high demand at their stores. “People buy a lot of Dostoevsky and Bulgakov — they’re evergreens. It’s like bread,” Jerums says. “People buy it every day — and they buy The Master and Margarita, too.”

How Latvian booksellers, readers, and security services are fighting Russian propaganda

In the early 2010s, Russian books offering “alternative” versions of history were easy to find in Latvian stores. That began to change after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, when new Russian children’s atlases started disappearing from bookstores — atlases in which state borders could be made out among the descriptions of animals and plants.

In 2024, Latvia’s State Security Service publicly acknowledged that it had held “conversations” with bookstore managers and asked them to “review the selection of books they offer.”

Jerums says customers police the shelves themselves and take action if they see books that could pass for propaganda.

“People report us to the police. There’s an anti-Putin book by Olaf Kühl, Z: A Short History of Russia, Seen From Its End. A customer saw the letter Z on the cover and filed a complaint. We had to explain ourselves to the police,” Jerums says.

The reverse happens, too: sometimes customers “ask us to order books by Margarita Simonyan or a biography of Viktor Bout.” “I wouldn’t bring those in now,” the bookseller says.

He says a bookseller cannot always keep track of everything the publishers he buys from put out, and that this sometimes leads to trouble. “Say I want to order psychology books, but that publisher might also put out Z-poetry about the Donbas. Those books automatically end up on the price list and on our website. And they shouldn’t be there,” he says.

To avoid such situations, Jerums and his colleagues at the store have had to compile their own list of “undesirable literature” to hide those books on the website. The list already runs to 470 titles, Jerums says.

Lindanen says her store, too, has deliberately cut certain Russian authors from its shelves: “I was never a fan of [the propagandist] Zakhar Prilepin, and even if I had been, we’re crossing this author out. Neither his early nor his later novels will be on our shelves.”

Meduza checked the catalogs of Latvia’s major bookstore chains and found no titles by Prilepin listed.