It is acknowledged that the value of reading has gone down in today's Russian society, and this is rated as unequivocally negative. Instead of "the most well-read country in the world," Russia is now called a "society of TV viewers" by the some observers; it is not a nation of independent thinkers but passive objects of the influence of the state and mass media, subservient to the state. The abdication of the intelligentsia as an authoritative social entity that sets cultural norms, the decline of active social involvement in all social spheres, the change in social and political processes over time and the simplification and atomization of social structure have all led to a drastic decline in the role of books and reading. Research on the reading habits of the more intellectually inclined young people of Russia shows that their allegiance is to the more serious classics of literature rather than to contemporary popular fiction. Thus, the literary tastes of the older generation of Russian intellectuals are being preserved by the younger generation. (Contains 5 tables and 11 notes.) [This article was translated by Kim Braithwaite.]