In Russia, books about Hottabych, Crocodile Gena, and other children’s works have begun to be labeled because of the law on drug propaganda

In Russia, books about Hottabych, Crocodile Gena, and other children’s works have begun to be labeled because of the law on drug propaganda

Russia’s largest digital platforms have begun массово labeling well-known children’s books with warnings about drugs, Verstka noticed.

In particular, the services Litres and Ozon have added the relevant label to the books Crocodile Gena and Cheburashka, The Wizard of the Emerald City, Old Khottabych, The Three Little Pigs, Mikhail Zoshchenko’s Stories for Children, and Korney Chukovsky’s Fairy Tales.

On Ozon, the label also appears on Crocodile Gena and His Friends and The Adventures of Dunno, while on the AST publishing house website it appears on the book By the Pike’s Wish and Other Fairy Tales.

Among foreign works, the warning has been added to The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, Treasure Island, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Peter Pan. Besides Litres and Ozon, the labeling is found on the Ridero and Stroki platforms and in other services. In some cases, the warning appears in audio versions of the works, while it is absent from the text versions.

Why children’s books are receiving the label is unknown. They are not included in the list of books that the Russian Book Union had previously recommended for labeling. Some works, including The Hobbit and Old Khottabych, mention magic potions. In March, Eksmo CEO Yevgeny Kapyev wrote that formally such books could also fall under the labeling requirements.

Read the full article on the website. Link not opening? Read it here.

😘 Read our news first on @svobodnieslova and support our work