An Incredible Move With His Ears

• Alexander Nevzorov
• 27.09.2026, 4:00

Not even the most ruthless KGB censorship could have come up with such "beauty."

Roskomnadzor has pulled off an incredible sleight of hand. From now on, the list of banned books is banned in Russia.

The list has not been abolished. It remains in effect. Stores, libraries, and reading rooms are required to confiscate, recycle, burn, or encase in concrete any literature banned in the Russian Federation.

Passing a book along privately, “from hand to hand,” is virtually unpunishable. The maximum possible penalty is five years in a general-regime penal colony “for spreading extremism.” By today’s standards, that’s a mere trifle.

The list is extensive. It contains more than 4,000 titles.

However, the FSB and the RKN decided, out of the blue, to create a real challenge.

Now you can easily end up in jail for a seditious book, but what exactly constitutes sedition is unknown—because it’s “classified.”

In the USSR, everything was clearer. “Samizdat” and “tami-zdat” were banned. There were no exceptions—it was either three years in prison or exile to the northern regions.
Books published in the Soviet Union after 1928 were, by definition, considered permitted. You might, of course, get a dressing-down at a party meeting, but you wouldn’t be jailed.

Now the game has become more complicated and more intriguing. Some of the “subversive” material consists of publications that were perfectly Russian—right up until 2022.

But!

Citizens and organizations, libraries and reading rooms are expected to “sense” banned literature from a distance of 2–3 meters and not even pick it up.

Not even the most ruthless KGB censorship could have come up with such a brilliant idea.

Alexander Nevzorov, “Telegram”