![\"Globus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_4241.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGlobus Books has brought together Russian-speakers of different cultures and backgrounds for 55 years. <\/p>\n
Sep 24, 2026<\/p>\n
Updated 4:42 pm PT<\/p>\n
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Globus Books has been a cornerstone of the Bay Area’s Russian-speaking community since 1971.\u00a0(Nastia Voynovskaya)<\/p>\n
San Francisco\u2019s only bookstore focused on literature from Russia, Ukraine and other former-Soviet nations is officially a San Francisco legacy business.<\/p>\n
For decades, Globus Books<\/a> \u2014 with its shelves of old tomes and nostalgic, Soviet-era rugs \u2014\u00a0has served as a hub for Russian speakers of different cultures and backgrounds. Its customer base over the years has included people who arrived from China after World War II; Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union; and immigrants who left in the \u201990s after the Iron Curtain fell. More recently, a younger generation of Ukrainians fleeing the war, Russian dissidents escaping censorship and LGBTQ+ asylum seekers have all come to the cozy space to connect through books.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk literature, but at the same time we\u2019re building this community and the feeling that it is possible to find home away from home,\u201d says manager Anastasiya Mutungi, who is originally from Belarus.\u00a0<\/p>\n To celebrate the store\u2019s new legacy business designation and its 55th anniversary, the Richmond District shop will host a celebration on Sept. 27 from 11 a.m.\u20139 p.m., with food, an open mic, live jazz, and readings by local authors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among those authors is poet and UC Berkeley Professor Polina Barskova, who first came to Globus in the \u201990s when she arrived from Saint Petersburg, Russia as a doctoral student. Now, as Putin\u2019s administration cracks down on dissent in Russia \u2014 and many artists, journalists and scholars find themselves essentially in exile \u2014\u00a0Globus has become even more important for Barskova and other writers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOnce our books became banned again, this is our oxygen,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Barskova says the Russian government has labeled her a foreign agent for her scholarship about Russian history that contradicts official narratives. The foreign agent label<\/a> comes with heavy free speech restrictions, including a ban on engaging in educational activities and teaching at public universities.<\/p>\n Providing a refuge for intellectuals is part of Globus\u2019 legacy. When it first opened in 1971, it also ran a publishing house for immigrant authors who faced similar censorship in the Soviet Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n The offerings on Globus\u2019 shelves extend well beyond historical and scholarly works. The store\u2019s stock encompasses memoirs, mystery and fantasy novels, cookbooks, children\u2019s books and English-language books by first- and second-generation authors from the diaspora.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mutungi emphasizes that everyone is welcome at the store, even if they don\u2019t speak Russian. She hopes the legacy business designation \u2014 which earned Globus a place in San Francisco\u2019s registry of over 400 historically significant businesses<\/a> \u2014 will put the shop on more people\u2019s radars.\u00a0<\/p>\n In her acceptance speech at the San Francisco Small Business Commission, Mutungi alluded to another challenge booksellers face in 2026: AI companies purchasing and destroying rare and antique books. (She says Globus has received several such orders, and learned after the fact who they\u2019d come from.)\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a turbulent climate. But Mutungi wants Sunday\u2019s celebration to be about the shop\u2019s enthusiastic, cross-cultural community of readers.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to remind everyone that San Francisco is not defined only by AI companies and robot taxis,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful city, and it\u2019s mainly beautiful because of the different communities and people who build it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_4344.jpg\")
The window display of the Russian-language shop Globus Books in San Francisco features Ukrainian authors.\u00a0(Anastasiya Mutungi)<\/p>\n