Two names, one legal consequence
Boris Akunin — pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili — was added to Russia's terrorist and extremist register in 2023. Dmitry Glukhovsky followed. Both designations were entered by Rosfinmonitoring, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, which maintains the list under Russian federal law. The register is a legal instrument: designation triggers mandatory financial restrictions and, as a publishing fact, makes domestic distribution of a listed person's work legally and commercially untenable.
The practical effect on both writers' domestic publication was immediate. Titles already in print were pulled from retail circulation. Eksmo-AST, which had held Glukhovsky's Metro series and related titles, ceased domestic sales of his work. Akunin's Erast Fandorin novels — among the best-selling Russian crime fiction of the post-Soviet period — disappeared from Russian booksellers' shelves. Neither writer was present in Russia at the time of designation; both were living abroad.
Akunin, based in Europe, had by that point made public statements opposing the war and had been vocal on platforms accessible outside Russia. Glukhovsky had similarly spoken publicly against the invasion. Under Russian law, the extremist register designation does not require a criminal conviction; Rosfinmonitoring may act on the basis of a court order or prosecutor's application. The specific grounds for each entry are recorded in the official Rosfinmonitoring database. Publishers operating within Russia face legal exposure if they continue to produce, stock, or sell the work of a listed individual.
Neither writer's titles vanished from international markets. English-language editions of Akunin's fiction remain available abroad; Glukhovsky's Metro 2033 remains in print with Gollancz. The exile press ecosystem — including Freedom Letters and Vidim Books, both operating outside Russia — is under no such restriction.
What the register entry closes, precisely, is the domestic shelf. The international shelf stays open. That gap, now documented in two named cases, is one of the defining structural facts of Russian literary publishing since 2022.