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Pravde loses newsroom in fire

Wednesday February 15th 2006, 1:57 am
Filed under: Newspapers

One of the biggest and most influential Russian newspapers, Komsomolskaya Pravda, has lost its building on Pravda Street in Moscow. It was totally destroyed yesterday during a big fire. All the staff members were rescued except a waitress from the local restaurant who died.

Pravda Street is famous for its newspaper complex consisting of a range of buildings where a number of Russian national newspapers have their offices. The oldest building where Komsomolskaya Pravda and some other newspapers (Parlamentskaya Gazeta, Tribuna, Sovetskaya Russia) were situated was erected in the 1930s. All the floor structures were made of wood. Because of that, 50 fire engines could not stop a fire for many hours after a short-circuit at about 10:30 a.m.

All the newspaper archivesm including one of the biggest photo archives in Russia, and office equipment were burned. Today’s issue was published in a short version. But most of the editors hope that the newspapers sales will increase thanks to readers who purchase it to know about the tragedy or out of curiosity.

Source: Anastasia Alekseeva, The Editors Weblog