From May 14 to May 17, 2026, Tomsk State University and the Siberian branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts will host the fourth Festival of Art and Reading “TOM”. This year it will be devoted to the topic: Book as Art. The organizers offer to consider the book not only as a carrier of some text, but also as a complex visual object, a work of printed art and a universal conveyor of knowledge.
The guests of the Festival will be offered a four-day program with more than 50 events: from lectures on the future of the book to experiments with the book form. Among the invited speakers are linguist Maxim Krongauz, journalist and writer Yuri Saprykin, deputy director of the Pushkin Museum for Research Ilya Doronchenkov, art critic Tamara Galeeva, editor-in-chief of Tatlin Publishing House Eduard Kubensky, typographer Ruslan Knyazev and other experts.
A book fair will be opened in the University Grove all four days of the Festival. It will unite more than 20 publishers from all over the country who will present their novelties: Pushkin Museum, Ad Marginem, New Literary Review, V-A-C Press, Samokat, Garage Museum, Makushin Media, TSU Publishing House, Artemy Lebedev Studio, Apricobux and others.
The main sites will be the University Grove, the pavilion of the Siberian branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, TSU Research Library, etc. The program includes three substantive blocks dedicated to art, typography and literature.
— For several years, TOM has become an important cultural event for the country. Every year guests and experts from all over Russia visit the Festival. TSU traditionally raises important problems for society, for example, this year a separate track will be devoted to the role of artificial intelligence in creating texts. We will discuss copyright issues and hold a master class on creating a digital avatar of famous literary characters, – says Julia Emer, TSU Vice-Rector for Information Policy and Digital Communications.
Siberian branch of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts will present two new projects that reveal the diversity of the artist’s book.
The Festival program includes excursions to restoration workshops and book depository; master classes; the annual event of the TSU Research Library “Books in the Life of Non-Book People”; inclusive block of specialists of the Pushkin Museum; book presentations and quizzes from Yandex.Books.
Detailed information about the Festival will be published on the website https://tom.pushkinmuseum.art/, on social networks https://t.me/tombooksart, https://vk.com/tombooksart, as well as on TSU social networks: https://vk.com/tomskuniversity and the website of the Siberian branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts: https://vk.com/pushkinmuseum_siberia.
Organizers: National Research Tomsk State University, Siberian Branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
Partners: Association of Book Festivals, Yandex.Books
Date: May 14-17, 2026
Venue: TSU University Grove
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