Russian fire loss
Firefighters extinguish a blaze in the library of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences in Moscow, Russia. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA.
Fire in major Russian library destroys 1m historic documents, The Guardian, 1 February 2015
Leading scientist speaks of cultural ‘Chernobyl’ after blaze ravages 2,000 sq metres of Moscow institute holding papers dating to 16th century
A fire that ripped through one of Russia’s largest university libraries is believed to have damaged more than 1m historic documents, with some describing the fire as a cultural “Chernobyl”.
The blaze, which began on Friday and was still not completely out on Saturday evening, ravaged 2,000 square metres (21,500 sq ft) of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (Inion) in Moscow, which was created in 1918 and holds 10m documents, some of which date back to the 16th century.
Vladimir Fortov, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: “It’s a major loss for science. This is the largest collection of its kind in the world, probably equivalent to the [US] Library of Congress.
“One can find documents there that are impossible to find elsewhere, all the social sciences use this library. What has happened here is reminiscent of Chernobyl,” he said, referring to the 1986 nuclear catastrophe.