Rare Russian Books Kept Vanishing From Libraries. Why?

Over the course of 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare Russian books—mostly prized editions by Alexander Pushkin—vanished from libraries across Europe in what may be the most ambitious book theft spree in recent memory. The thefts, spanning libraries from Riga to Paris, shared a pattern: thieves, often using fake identities, would request rare Russian titles and swap them for facsimiles, or just take them outright and slip away. The operation was marked more by opportunism and weak forgeries than cinematic heists—one expert called the fakes "pretty amateur." But the rare books targeted were undeniably valuable: In a lengthy piece on the heist for the Guardian, Philip Oltermann writes that similar volumes have fetched five- and six-figure sums at auction in the last decade.

But the big question was not just who was carrying out the thefts, but at whose behest. "Was this a bunch of small-time criminals making use of lax security, or were investigators looking at something bigger, a state-sponsored Russian exercise in recouping cultural heritage that had been scattered across the continent?" Oltermann writes. Investigators eventually traced much of the activity to a loose network of Georgian suspects, including Beqa Tsirekidze and Mikheil Zamtaradze, whose travel and library records suggested "a degree of coordination but also an element of competition and mutual deception." Both men were convicted. As for the driving force, Oltermann never quite arrives at an answer, though he does conclude the idea of Russian involvement "remains extremely speculative." (Read the full story.)