A poster from the Russian Revolution, reading "From Darkness to Light, from Battles to Books"

The Moscow Writers Union and the Moscow city government have joined forces to launch a street campaign in the Russian capital to promote reading, according to a RIA Novosti wire story.

“As part of this campaign, the Moscow Writers Union placed 100 thematic billboards saying ‘Read books’ on city streets,” says a spokesman for the Writers Union, Alexander Gerasimov. In a plan to target young people especially, the signs will also broadcast slogans such as “Discover new things!”, “Be guided by knowledge” and “Fill in the gaps!”, Gerasimov says.

“Russians read newspapers and news on the Internet, but apparently have an apathy toward reading serious literature, thick books written not only by contemporaries but by classic writers as well. Such indifference can lead to erosion of entire cultural layers, to depletion of knowledge about literature, to the loss of national self-identification.”

The Friday announcement seems inspired by a recent story that got a lot of pick up in Russia:

President Dmitry Medvedev admitted two weeks ago that his son found books less interesting than the Internet, recounting how they found a version of Mikhail Lermontov’s classic novel A Hero of Our Time on the web.

“We searched for A Hero of Our Time on the Internet, a well-known book, a classic,” Medvedev told a meeting of the state science and culture councils on April 22. “We found it, no problem, downloaded it, and then the young man got the desire to have a look. But the book lies there, untouched.”

Meanwhile Gerasimov says the campaign will expand to other parts of the country starting in June. “We can boldly speak of a quick transformation of the Moscow information campaign into a Russia-wide one,” he says.