Maria Slobodkina has collected 170,000 books and she hopes to collect many more. But she does not expect to read any of them.


Slobodkina is the head of the Public Institute for the Problems of Civil Society, which has organized a charity collection of books to send out to public libraries in the provinces.


"What is happening to the cultural and spiritual level of Russians is a tragedy. We have to do something about that," Slobodkina said. "It is impossible to build a civilized society in a country with degraded people."


She said her institute had found that the number of books published in Russian had dwindled by almost a half in recent years. The institute had also sent letters to small public libraries all over the country and discovered that they were in an appalling state.


Slobodkina applied to publishers, large state libraries, and charity organizations, asking them for books and transportation costs. Within several months, the institute had collected 170,000 works of literature, science and education and sent them to 459 local libraries.


Altogether, 62 state and private organizations are involved in the project, and so far have donated about 440 million rubles ($146,860) in cash, books and services, according to Slobodkina.


The institute is also targeting prisons and military units.