It is with gladness of heart that I learn the bookshops came through the twilight of Almaty's vandalism untouched

It is with gladness of heart that I learn the bookshops came through the twilight of Almaty's vandalism untouched. At any rate, the shop in the photograph and Akademkniga on Furmanov Street suffered no harm in the course of the outrages committed by looters and loathsome rioters. Perhaps the chief incident involving booksellers was the disappearance of the shelves of books by members of the Nazarbayev family in the days after peace was restored; this happened at the MelomAn shop on Gogol Street. Although reports in the media spoke of an unsuccessful attempt to seize the country's principal book depository, the National Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan, I do not know how far this corresponds to reality.