Police spokesman Gennady Ilyanov said thieves broke into the building Saturday night through a first-floor window of a repository usually blocked off to library visitors.
The alarm system didn't work, Ilyanov said, and library officials did not realize anything was wrong until Sunday afternoon.
"The number of stolen manuscripts is so big we are still working it out," he said. They range in age from 300 to 1300 years old.
"All these manuscripts are unique," a library spokesperson said Tuesday. "The collection was put together over hundreds of years. It is Russian national property."
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