Russian library housing unique documents, ancient texts devastated by fire

RT
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 15:06 UTC

One of Russia's largest academic libraries, which contains millions of unique historic documents, has gone up in flames in Moscow. A part of the building's roof collapsed before dozens of fire fighters managed to contain the blaze.

The fire erupted at around 10 pm local time (7 pm GMT) on the third floor of the Academic Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) in Moscow. According to the Emergency Situations Ministry, some 2,000 square meters were engulfed in flames, prompting the roof to cave in.

According to preliminary data, the cause of the fire could be a malfunction of the electrical system, a law-enforcement source told RIA Novosti news agency. "A short circuit in the electrical system is currently being regarded as a primary lead," he said Saturday.

На юго-западе Москвы сгорела библиотека ИНИОН РАН. https://t.co/vm2LCuZiHx pic.twitter.com/qBO8AH2xxb

- Петр Петров (@VolschebnikNNT4) January 31, 2015

A total of 147 rescue workers and 38 pieces of fire-fighting equipment were used to contain the fire shortly after midnight, the ministry said.

No one was killed in the ferocious inferno, and the air quality around the site is within acceptable limits, officials said.

Пожар уничтожил 1/2 здания Института научн.информации по обществ.наукам (ИНИОН)-крупнейшую научную библиотеку России pic.twitter.com/LEKLILFdfG

- Financial Guard (UA) (@finvarta) January 31, 2015

With 49,000 readers and 330 employees, INION is the largest research center in Russia in the fields of social sciences and humanities. Its collection consists of 14.2 million texts in both ancient and modern European and Asian languages, including rare 400-year-old editions. What's more, it has one of the biggest collections of books in Slavic languages in the country.

The library, founded in 1918, also can boast the Russia's most complete collection of documents of the League of Nations, the UN, and UNESCO, as well as parliamentarian reports of the United States (since 1789), the UK (since 1803), Italy (since 1897), and many others.

INION has 874 partners in 69 countries of the world, and participates in international book-exchange programs. It is a member of the International Federation of Library Associations.

Comment: What a tragic loss to researchers everywhere. It can only be hoped INION will be able to salvage some of the collection.

Reader Comments

Mandatory Intellectomy · 2015-01-31T17:16:02Z

That's terrible. Wonder if somebody "helped" it. I know of some "people" stupid and desperate enough to do that as a "warning".

forestkitty · 2015-01-31T20:19:12Z

just like the twin towers happened to have brought down building 7, the one holding c.i.a. and f.b.i. files. somebody wants to eliminate russia's historic and old papers regarding their relationship with the rest of the world. but, as i understand it, there is an exact copy of every page somewhere else.

Niall · 2015-02-02T00:11:02Z

Meanwhile in Brooklyn...

...on the same day: [Link]

"The cause of the fire has not been determined.

Firefighters were called to the warehouse around 4:30 a.m. for a smaller fire and found that it had been contained by the building's sprinkler system. They then shut down the sprinkler system to prevent further water damage, a concern when dealing with paper records, and to allow the building’s staff to replace the sprinkler heads, Francis X. Gribbon, the Fire Department’s chief spokesman, said.

“This is standard operating procedure,” he said. “We respond to make sure the fire is out. At that point, we turn the facility over.” There were building employees there when the firefighters left, he added.

But a little over an hour later, a new emergency call came in and firefighters returned.

“When they came back it was second alarm on arrival,” Mr. Gribbon said, meaning the blaze was large enough to require several units and scores of firefighters. About 275 firefighters were at the scene on Saturday night, and units had been switching out about every three hours.

Fire marshals on Sunday were investigating several questions that remained unanswered: whether the original fire had “rekindled” or a second fire had erupted elsewhere in the building soon after the first, and whether the fire had been deliberately set or sparked accidentally, perhaps by faulty wiring.

It was not immediately clear whether the sprinkler heads had been replaced before the building was engulfed again. “The sprinkler system was off; it had been turned off after the first fire,” Mr. Gribbon said.

Fire marshals on Sunday were interviewing the building’s workers who were present, in an effort to figure out where the fires began."

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Russian library housing unique documents, ancient texts devastated by fire

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