Moscow parks to open reading rooms this summer

Moscow city authorities have earmarked more than 20m roubles (£420,000) to boost reading in the capital with plans to open a reading room in Sokolniki park this summer. The room will provide comfortable seating as well as a library where readers can deposit, borrow or buy books.

It will also be equipped with electrical outlets to allow for reading on laptops and other electronic devices. The park, in northeast Moscow, will also play host to more than 50 literary and cultural events including workshops and talks with well-known writers and poets.

Ilya Chernyshev, director of Northern Tushino, another park to open a reading room this summer, said that Muscovites needed “a cozy place to read in a stylish pavilion with floor lamps and coffee”. Alexei Ryabinin, member of the Culture and Mass Communications Commission at the Moscow City Duma, said he believes similar reading rooms should be built in all city parks.