Opernplatz more South Ossetian

Apparently, for reasons, first of all, of saving space, and not ideological ones, books were burned in Tskhinvali near the university dormitory building on September 10. Local journalist and writer Alan Tskhurbaev was the first to report this in a blog on the Caucasian Knot website. “Books are transported in cars and soldiers throw them into the fire,” he wrote. On September 15, the Russian Duma collected books for the Central Library of Tskhinvali and the libraries of educational institutions in South Ossetia. Journalist Dmitry Starostin drew attention to Tskhurbaev’s message in a blog on the website Slon.ru. He said that he contacted friends in Tskhinvali, who confirmed Tskhurbaev’s words. The famous South Ossetian field commander Timur Tskhovrebov, now the editor of the newspaper “XXI Century,” said that he pulled out from the burning heap a collection of Goethe’s poems, a book by the classic of Tajik literature Sadriddin Aini, “Medieval Religious Poetry of the 10th Century,” and “The History of French Literature.”

At the same time, Tskhovrebov admitted that 30 percent of the books burned were Georgian.

In response to these messages, the rector of the local university, Teimuraz Kokoev, told Ekho Moskvy that no one burned the books; simply because of renovations, the library was forced to get rid of outdated textbooks - in a more humane way than by sending them to the stake. According to Kokoev, among the books that had to be disposed of was humanitarian aid sent by one of the Russian universities - allegedly these were outdated textbooks. In turn, the Minister of Education of the Republic Anatoly Kusraev told the Regnum news agency that there was no burning of books from the library of the South Ossetian State University in Tskhinvali, and this was simply “disposal of storage units that had become unusable.” “At the same time, copies that are recognized as unnecessary are either transferred somewhere, or something happens to them,” Kusraev clearly explained the situation.