The Turgenev Library-Reading Room is the first public free city public library in Moscow, near Myasnitskaya Street. Founded in 1884 on the initiative and at the expense of Varvara Alekseevna Morozova to perpetuate the memory of the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. In the 19th century, it became the first public free library in Moscow – before that, access to printed publications in reading rooms could only be obtained for a fee.
Today the library is a complex of seven specialized halls equipped with the latest electronic gadgets, 3 rooms for cultural and educational programs, an exhibition hall, four book storages, and a number of office premises. Libris cafe, which is its structural subdivision, operates on the territory of the library.
The computer network of the Library has 83 workstations, 29 of which are for readers. All library and bibliographic processes are computerized using the Automated Library Information System Absotheque Unicode (Russia).
The Library’s electronic catalog contains about 130,000 entries. The main types of library and information services are free. There is a pledge subscription and an AV subscription.
The library fund has over 100 thousand copies. documents, including:
- book editions of universal subjects in Russian, German, French and English;
- periodicals (newspapers and magazines) in Russian, German, French;
- reference books of a universal nature, special reference books, bilingual dictionaries;
- electronic publications (tutorials, publications on CD-ROM);
- audio-visual documents (“talking books”, music CDs, films on DVD and video cassettes).
Located near the metro stations Turgenevskaya, Chistye Prudy, Sretensky Boulevard.
Attractions around: Myasnitskaya Street, Menshikov Tower, Chistye Prudy (pond), Chistoprudny Boulevard, Sovremennik Theatre, Turgenevskaya Square, Bolshoi Theatre, Manezhnaya Square, Ploschad Revolyutsii (square), State Duma building, House of the Unions, Tretyakovskiy proezd, Central Children’s Store, Lubyanka Building, Metropol Hotel, Tsentrosoyuz Building, Red Square, Kremlin, Sretenka street.
