The Department of Culture in Moscow will remove Fifty Shades of Grey from its library shelves in order to help readers develop a "normal taste" in literature.
According to Russian news agency TASS, Alexander Kibovsky, head of the Department of Culture in Moscow, said that the citywide review of library books was not "a question of censorship, but of understanding the situation."
He expressed concern that libraries had bought 137 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.
"We are working to help our readers develop normal taste. ‘People will not come [to the library] anymore!’ they tell me. Yeah, well it is better if one person who reads Dostoevsky comes to us, than ten people who choose dubious literature!" Kibovsky said.
Kibovsky also said that libraries were not buying books about Russian historical figures.
"For example, literature about the War of 1812. We have 100 books about Napoleon, but only 20 books about Kutuzov. The question is: Who won?" he said.
Tatyana Krasnova, the head of culture and youth policy in Moscow, said she worried that books like The Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, a book about "narcotic hallucinations and sexual escapades," would negatively affect Russian youth.
"These are books that contain profanity, books that discuss issues of drug abuse, that contain references to suicide, and that provoke our young people to partake in illegal activity," she said.
Moscow’s initiative to review its bookshelves echoes an initiative in the Sverdlovsk region to ban books by British historians Antony Beevor and John Keegan last week.