The pointless “book club” of the Ministry of Culture

The ministry spent tens of millions on printing unnecessary books in “its” publishing houses.

Over the course of two years, the Ministry of Culture spent more than 24 million UAH on books that were supposed to strengthen the national unity of Ukrainians. The books were chosen at a competition, and their distribution was handled by the state enterprise “Center for the Protection of the Information Space of Ukraine” (CIPU). However, a recent audit carried out at this enterprise, the results of which were obtained by NGL.media, revealed many problems both at the stages of signing agreements with publishers and during the distribution of books.

The main complaint of the auditors, despite the comments regarding the content of books published at public expense, concerns distribution. It turned out that a significant part of the circulation simply remains in warehouses - in some cases up to 90%. As a result, auditors make a logical conclusion about the feasibility of such a program. “The low percentage of distribution of published books indicates that there is no need for their publication and the failure to achieve the goal of distributing the information product,” says the State Audit Service report.

However, the Ministry of Culture does not intend to abandon the “Book to Strengthen National Unity” program—the deadline for submitting a new competition continues until November 15.

Books for the elite

The Ministry of Culture announced the start of the special program “Books to Strengthen National Unity” in September 2022, and already in November the competition commission selected 18 books that were published at public expense through the state enterprise “Center for the Protection of Information Space of Ukraine” (CIPU).

Since the books and publishing houses to participate in this project were selected through an art competition, CZIPU entered into agreements with them without holding open tenders.

Next year, 2023, 41 books have already been published within the framework of the “Book to Strengthen National Unity” project. At the same time, some of the winners were chosen in August, and some in December, but all agreements were concluded only by the end of the year, with immediate payment. According to the auditors, there was no thoughtfulness in the promotion of these books - some were presented immediately after printing, while others either did not present them at all, or did so with a significant delay.

In total, during 2022-2023, TsIPU concluded 59 agreements with publishing houses for a total amount of UAH 24.2 million. This year, CZIPU has not yet concluded new agreements, but has held open tenders for printing additional editions of the book “Rashism is...” and the book “Genocide.” Summit-Book LLC won both purchases, with which they have already concluded relevant agreements for almost 630 thousand UAH.

Actually, “Summit Book” and the publishing house “Folio” turned out to be the favorites of the “Book for Strengthening National Unity” project. It was these two publishing houses that received UAH 17 million out of the UAH 24.2 million allocated to finance this project in 2022-2023.

But many well-known Ukrainian publishers have not even heard of “The Book for Strengthening National Unity.” “I haven’t heard about this program, maybe I missed it. Typically, we receive mailings from specialized organizations about various opportunities for publishers. The team reviews them and evaluates whether they are appropriate and whether they meet the requirements of the competition. Not everywhere our publishing portfolio falls under the conditions of competitions and grants,” explains Anastasia Nikitina, executive director of the Nash Format publishing house.

Yulia Orlova, director of the Vivat publishing house, which periodically publishes books for projects of the Ukrainian Institute of Books, also said that she had never heard of this Ministry of Culture project. “We have enough publications that could probably take part in this program, we just didn’t know about it - this is the first time I’ve heard of it,” said the publisher.

For the first time we learned about the “Book to Strengthen National Unity” from journalists and the small publishing house “Belka”, where we turned for a comment, since its range directly corresponds to the program declared by the Ministry of Culture. “We definitely fit into this program. But I think there is not enough promotion here, we would have taken part [if we had known]. But we are a small publishing house, we do not have departments that work with grants. We promote our books through reader activity,” says publishing house director Irina Belotserkovskaya.

Several other major publishers simply did not want to talk about this Ministry of Culture project, explaining that they were skeptical about it for various reasons.

Large publishing families

The Kiev publishing house Summit-Book, owned by brothers Ivan and Igor Stepurin, received the most money and orders within the framework of the “Book to Strengthen National Unity” project. The publishing house itself received 5.3 million UAH, and another 5.5 million UAH was divided among themselves by publishers affiliated with Summit Book.

For example, Igor Stepurin received 1.1 million UAH as an individual entrepreneur, and Artel Creative Agency LLC, where he is also a book compiler, received 1.7 million UAH. Another more than 711 thousand UAH were received by Vash Autograph LLC, a publishing house close to it. Your Autograph LLC is connected with Igor Stepurin through his classmate and former business partner Igor Lubin. However, he and his wife Natalya, who is the official owner of “Your Autograph,” refused to comment.

Another 2 million UAH was received by Ivan Rotarchuk, the son-in-law of Ivan Stepurin, who entered into an agreement with TsIPU for the publication of five books. At the same time, Rotarchuk’s acquaintances list his phone number as a taxi driver and an expert in car certification, according to GetContact data.

Thus, “Summit-Book” and companies affiliated with this publishing house, within the framework of the “Book to Strengthen National Unity” project, published 26 books by order of the Ministry of Culture for a total amount of UAH 10.8 million.

The Kharkov publishing house “Folio” received 19 orders from TsIPU for a total amount of 6.2 million UAH. Of these, 5.1 million UAH passed through Folio LLC and Folio Publishing LLC, 225 thousand UAH through Fakt LLC and another 820 thousand UAH through the Bibkollektor publishing house, which belongs to Lada Krasovitskaya, the wife of the owner of Folio » Alexander Krasovitsky.

That is, 45 books out of 59 ordered were actually published by only two publishing houses. Their share accounted for 17 million UAH out of 24.2 million UAH.

The rest of the amount was divided among ten more companies. Among them, for example, Green Penguin Media LLC, which issued a thousand copies of the book “Why Ukraine is brave?” for 475 thousand UAH. This company is better known as the Kiev creative agency Green Penguin, which at one time developed new logos for the Ministry of Culture. We were unable to find information about the published book; there is also no information about it on the agency’s website.

“We just offer good books”

The director of the Summit Book publishing house, Ivan Stepurin, was surprised that his publishing house received the most money as part of the Book to Strengthen National Unity program from the Ministry of Culture. He says that he does not keep such statistics. But he believes that the reason for success is that the publishing house has been actively publishing and popularizing Ukrainian books for a long time.

“We simply offer good books,” explains Ivan Stepurin, “These are open competitions. The fact that others publish less on these programs, I would advise them to get involved more actively. Because on the one hand, this is proper government support [for publishing houses], and on the other hand, it is important for libraries and Ukraine as a whole.”

The actual replenishment of library collections is the main task of the Books for Strengthening National Unity program. Books published at state expense are given to libraries and also distributed at presentations or official events. These books should not be available for free sale.

This is confirmed by Ivan Stepurin. According to him, the publishing house can facilitate distribution if asked, but in general this is handled by the ministry. It is the administrator of published books. “We print and give to the ministry, but they can keep [the books] with us. Of course, we are interested in books being distributed, because PR for our books is very important to us,” notes Stepurin.

However, journalists discovered that some of the books published under the state program are sold on book websites. At the same time, according to the State Audit Service, the cost of these books on free sale is lower than stipulated in the agreements with the Center for Public Auditing. For example, Evgenia Bogoslavskaya’s book “Bakhmut: Chronicles of an Indestructible Fortress” is sold on the official website of “Summit Book” for 500 UAH, although TsZIPU has already paid the publishing house 662.5 UAH per copy. It’s a similar story with the Folio publishing house, which has already received 410 UAH for the book “The Thought of the Back of the Head”, and sells it for 240 UAH.

According to the owner of Folio, Alexander Krasovitsky, we are talking about the second edition, which was paid for by the publishing house itself, without the help of the Ministry of Culture. He explains the significant difference in price by the cost of preparing the first edition for printing.

“One of the goals of this program is to encourage publishers to publish books on socially significant topics due to the fact that the state, when ordering copies, takes on the main costs of preparation, copyrights, printing forms, and the like. And therefore, the publisher no longer needs to spend a lot of money to release the next edition,” says Krasovitsky.

“It looks like there is procurement for the sake of procurement”

It is noteworthy that in 2022-2023, all books, regardless of genre, publisher and format, were published in the same edition of 1000 copies. Only the collection of materials from the Center for Strategic Communications “How the Russian information ship went to... Propaganda narratives during a full-scale war” was published by Summit Book in a circulation of 3,000 copies. The publishers themselves do not understand why all books are ordered in the same edition.

“I have many questions for the Ministry of Culture regarding what is in the rules of this competition,” says Alexander Krasovitsky from Folio. “Firstly, it seems to me that the ministry should more specifically define the thematic areas that should be included in the competition. Secondly, I believe that different books can be very important, but some are important with a circulation of 300 copies, and some are important with a circulation of 5000 copies, and this should be decided either by an expert council that knows what it wants, or by an enterprise TZIPU, when preparing an agreement, but, unfortunately, it turns out that everyone [is being treated] with the same brush.”

The report of the State Audit Service indicates that the situation with the distribution of already published books is disappointing. For example, during 2022-2023. from a thousand copies of the book “One Ukraine, one people. Rozmov with Leonid Kravchuk” (by the way, by Alexander Krasovitsky from “Folio”), only 459 copies were distributed, of which 168 copies were received by the Ministry of Culture itself.

48-page booklet for teenagers “Glory to Ukraine!” (creative agency "Artel") and "Tales of Little Patriots" (PE Igor Stepurin), published and transferred to TsZIPU at the end of 2023, were still stored in a warehouse as of August 2024. By the way, storing books in a warehouse is not free. Thus, in 2024, TsIPU entered into an agreement for the storage of books by Ukrvidavpolygrafiy for 227 thousand UAH.

Some of the printed books are given to public organizations, but even they are in no hurry to distribute them. For example, the NGO “Brovary Community” was able to distribute only 250 books, although it received 925 books at the end of last year.

Some of the books under the Book to Strengthen National Unity program were published in English, and the situation with their distribution turned out to be even worse. At the time of the audit, 70% of the circulation of these books remained in warehouses, which allowed the auditors to draw an obvious conclusion: “... Inappropriate management of MKIP and improper marketing of GM “TsZIPU” did not provide a wide distribution network of printed products, publishing of which was carried out in English, as well as low percentage of distribution indicates that there is no need for a publishing house in the same circulation (1000 pcs.) as books published in Ukrainian and irrational use of state budget funds.”

The founder of the Laboratory publishing house is Anton Martynov, who at one time was an adviser to the Minister of Culture and generally does not see the point in such projects, considering them opaque and ineffective. “I think this is the wrong way. This is ineffective because the path of this book is unknown and it is very likely that procurement is taking place for the sake of procurement,” says Martynov. - Therefore, as experience has shown, nothing was more effective for publishers than this thousand, which was distributed to every Ukrainian for books (in 2021, as part of the state program “eSupport”, all Ukrainians received 1000 UAH, which they could spend on buying books; also Since 2024, there has been a state program under which all Ukrainians upon reaching their 18th birthday receive a certificate for books in the amount of 900 UAH.) This gave an incredible boost to the industry, which even made it possible to survive the crisis in the market.”

Kost Bondarenko, Professor Lizanchuk and Cossack Potylitsa

The State Audit Service also examined the texts of books that were published for public money, and found that some books were published with controversial content - more precisely, such that “does not correspond to the main aspects defined by the Concept, and were in no way intended to ensure the protection of national interests and maintain a positive image Ukraine".

As an example, the comic fairy tale by Alexander Semyakin, “The Thought of the Back of the Head,” published by Folio, is given, the main character of which should have personified the Ukrainian brave warrior-defender, but looks like a drunkard and a reveler. In addition, Russian words are used in the comic: “He-xe! What a naughty!”, “Maybe this is an optical illusion?”, “Man! Find me!”, “Prakaznik!” and the like.

A question also arises for individual authors whose books are published for budget funds. We are talking, in particular, about the once famous political scientist Kostya Bondarenko, who was included in the database of pseudo-sociologists who manipulate public opinion and promote the interests of former regionals. After the full-scale invasion of the Russians, Kost Bondarenko significantly reduced his public activity, but continues to comment on current events on pro-Russian channels. This did not stop the Ministry of Culture from paying 357 thousand UAH for his book “Andrey Melnik: Unlearned Lessons,” the publisher of which was Ivan Rotarchuk, the son-in-law of the head and owner of the Summit-Book publishing house.

The auditors found out that among those published within the framework of the “Book for Strengthening National Unity” program there was also a manual by professor of Lviv National University Vasyl Lyzanchuk “Chronicles of the invincibility of the spirit (genocide, ethnocide, linguocide of the Ukrainian nation)”, which was written and first published back in 2008 . The reissue of the updated version was carried out by Vash Autograph LLC. At the time of the audit, 90% of the circulation remained in the warehouse, and there is still no information about this book in the media. A potential reader may only learn of its existence by chance in one of several libraries, or if it is placed in his hands during a conference.

What do they say at the state enterprise of the Ministry of Culture?

NGL.media sent to the state enterprise TsZIPU a list of questions regarding the “Book to Strengthen National Unity” program, as well as the results of an audit of the enterprise’s activities. Olga Dudchenko, who became the head of the Center only on October 25, 2024, after a change of leadership in the Ministry of Culture, asked for several weeks to prepare a response. Two weeks after the request was sent, NGL.media has not yet received a response.