This situation appears, to put it mildly, rather unusual.

On the one hand, Margarita Simonyan proudly proclaims that she has become one of the most widely read authors in Russia.

On the other hand, according to available information, the entire print run of her book was purchased by Simonyan herself and then handed over to Rossotrudnichestvo, so that Yevgeny Primakov could distribute it somewhere far from regular bookstores.

This raises a natural question: who is actually reading this publication?

It turns out that the book was written, published, and purchased by the same person. But who exactly constitutes the “broad readership” Simonyan refers to? Doesn’t it seem that she is considered “the most widely read writer” only according to her own internal statistics?