Russian organization that provided free access to popular science books closing due to political pressure and funding trouble

Vsenauka, an organization that gave Russians access to free popular science books, is closing as a result of political and financial challenges that have arisen in the last year, its creators announced on Tuesday.

“Many copyright holders abroad have begun refusing to work with Russia due to the worsening of international relations, causing the rights to some of our free books to become inaccessible in 2022,” read a statement on the project’s website.

Additionally, some of the authors whose books Vsenauka distributed have been declared “foreign agents” by the Russian authorities, which led the books’ publishers to ask the organization to stop distributing the books for free. Vsenauka has also had difficulty with financing, in part because one of its largest sponsors, Yandex, ended its partnership with the project in 2022.