Mir Publications is a name known to most Indians associated with excellent books in almost all subjects of interest, but especially in science and mathematics. Many people who I know, confess that the science and mathematics that they have understood, they owe to Mir Publications. I couldn’t agree more. The fascination that these books left me with in my childhood has is unforgettable. Also associated publishers were Foreign Languages Publishing House, Raduga Publishers and Progress Publishers. When I say Mir later, what is meant is the books published by ensemble of these publishers from the Soviet era.
The first book that I remember reading is one from Progress was when I was in 4th Grade, the Title of the Book was All About Telescope and since then I am like Alice in Wonderland. Russian books, rather books English published in the Soviet Russia, have had an unforgettable impression on my life. The joy that these books have provided to me over the years is immeasurable. Not only these books were cheap, they were also published in many Indian languages: Hindi, Marathi and Bengali and Tamil I know for sure. This provided an ideal platform and inspiration for many, who came to science. An entire generation of Indians came of age with the titles from Mir Publications. But with end of the Soviet era, the Mir saga came to an end. The Mir titles which at times were cheaply and easily available became scant. And finally ceased to be a part of the mainstream bookshops. Only places one could find them was in the used book shops, and that too became scarce as the years went by. This trend continues till date. To find a Mir title today even in a used book shop is nothing less than a MIRacle!!
I have collected many books from these publishers and they form most precious part of my collection.
Some of the classics of the Mir books are by Yakov Pereleman, Landau, Kitaigorodosky, Zeldovich, Matveev and the list goes on…
Some notable series were: Science for Every One, What is…, ABC of…, Physics for Everyone, Little Mathematics Library…
Many of the titles will be lost forever never to delight a new generation of readers. The knowledge that at least these books existed should not be lost. This blog is an project to make an comprehensive list of the titles published by Mir and over the years. So that the knowledge about these titles goes to the larger community, so that in the future someone can take up their digitization and / or republication. I urge and request all the people who owe even a little bit to books by Mir to contribute their knowledge about these books here…
How you can contribute?
You can contribute to this project in many ways:
- Add the books which are not in the list.
- Add information whether e – copies of the books are available.
- Add the list of the books which were republished, and status of their availability.
- Locate hard copies of the books, in library or personal collections.
- Add information about the book like different editions and reprints, language translations, reviews, personal experiences.
I hope that this small endeavor will be worth the effort and these gem of books will delight generations of readers to come…
Mir Books 
I agree. I also grew up starting from my primary school days reading the books over and over again. There are several children’s books worthy of collection. Some of the old collections you may still be able to get from .
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I really feel we owe at least this much to these books and the authors who took pains to write such beautiful books. Eagerly awaiting the list!
Best wishes.
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You may include the following title in your list:
1. Mathematics; Mir Publishers, 1991; by M.I. Bashmakov;
source: http://www.worldcat.org/title/mathematics/oclc/61562159&referer=brief_results
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Thanks for the input. I am going to add a list of all the books about mathematics that I know about soon.
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thanks for starting this page. it would be really awesome if you could scan and upload some of the books.
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Thanks for taking the interest.
Many of the books that are listed are already available on the internet.
For those which are not we are trying to make a list of them, then perhaps we can make the soft copies.
🙂
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awesome, great. i can make some soft copies too from my collection (in english and bangla) next time i go home. methinks it will be useful to make a page listing the soft copies of the one’s already available on the net. to avoid duplication of effort. by the way, besides science and mathematics books, there were also awesome children’s books, russian fairy tales and magazines. will try to make a list and send. but will take a while. 🙂
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Hello! Could you please tell me where to find these books?
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in fact, i had sent my own list some time back to Damitr, who is a pioneer in this field. thanks Damitr, for your zeal and perseverance!
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Very nice work . I have some of the books. I remember a children magazine called MISHA. I have some of it. If anyone needs I can scan .
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I have not seen Misha in many years. It would be great if you could scan!!
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This site is great! I also had the opportunity to read many MIR books. They are full of FUN staff, this is something that you can’t find easily in American Books….I wonder what kind of untranslated-russian books exist right now in bachelor and graduate physics (from any Russian publishing house)?????????????
Is the world missing such a great literature? or was just a USSR thing???
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Thanks for interest!
Yes MIR books are great, and lot of them are untranslated and some of them really good too.
You can look up for the old Kvant journal and see the entries there.
The series of books in Science for Everyone are the books from the Library of Kvant
Whether or not USSR thing, the point remains that the books are great!!
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why this bogey about ‘USSR’ thing? it should be remembered that in the wake of the launch of sputnik, there arose a massive outcry in the west, especially USA. various reform initiatives were undertaken to boost up the school mathematics and physics curriculla. russian books were translated into english under the garb of ‘east european’ literature from ‘educationally’ advanced countries (thereby indicating that certain societies, though not materially advanced, were somehow, educationally advanced). in fact, many of the volumes which were later published by MIR under the ‘Little Mathematics Library, got published in the 1960s in the USA under ‘Topics in Mathematics’.
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Yes you are right S.Sanjay, in garb of Soviet Russian being ‘ahead’ of USA in science and technology, the Americans tried to revamp their system of education. Billions of dollars, were poured into elevating science and mathematics standards in the USA. In the cold war era, the so called developing countries, were battleground for USA and USSR, in terms of books also. We had these books from Soviet Russia, meanwhile the publishers from the West were not far behind. Though not as cheap, the so called Eastern Economy Editions and others like that fall in this category [if you see, they mention the original US price in $, and the Indian discounted price]. But as regards to these ‘Mir’ books, they were really cheap, and affordable to most people. Along with the books on science and mathematics, you could get entire work of Lenin, Marx, and Engels for really cheap [read almost free] price. We can say that this was another dimension to the cold war struggle.
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in fact, if you visit the website of any american university and take a peep at the faculty in mathematics and computational sciences, you will find some russian or CIS origin individuals who have migrated post disintegration of the soviet union.
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Hi, love the blog.. have you any coverage of the Children’s Books that Raduga and Progress used to bring out.. those were massively popular during the 80s and I have looked since but they are very hard to find now. Help?
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Hi Arnob,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I will cover them soon, I have about 50 odd titles from those by Raduga and Progress. Will be posting information about them soon, and if possible upload the scans.
D
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Waiting for the scanned books.
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I have about 15-20 Mir books. I have been scanning & uploading them for past 1 year.
I have scanned & uploaded the following books so far:
Experiments Without Explosions
On Rare And Scattered Metals
Elementary Order
The Extraordinary Properties of Ordinary Solutions
Why I’m Like Dad?
Chemical Elements – How They Were Discovered
Let’s Play Geometry
A Spaceship In Orbit
Greatest Speed
Physics in Your Kitchen Lab
This Fascinating Astronomy
Yes, No Or Maybe
I have the following which I am yet to scan:
Silhouettes in Chemistry
Our Planet the Earth
The Grand Biological Clock
Me or Not Me
First Aid
You can email me for more info. All my PDFs are fully OCRed with bookmarks & covers with file sizes of 6mb to 16 mb..
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Its good to see others who have the same passion! Thanks for the info. I have ~ 300 Mir and other Soviet publishers books. Have scanned ~ 70 so far and have been releasing them since last 2 years, they include those of Science for Everyone, Physics for Everyone, and Little Mathematics Library and many popular science books, Irodov, Tarasov and Tarasova amongst others. I have most of your PDFs, from the net, thanks. Will include them in the coming posts. Thanks again.
D
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Hi gnv64
Where are the links to these books? What is your mail ID? Pls tell. lalit21_2000@yahoo.com
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please give a link to my id. I am eager to collect and read those. with thanks
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dear gnv54,
can you upload a non-torrent link for ‘a spaceship in orbit’?
s.sanjay
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Thank you. can you please sent to my mail. sregurathipandian@gmail.com
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Thank You, Can you send me these at satwant_2283@hotmail.com
Thanks Again !
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Hi,where can I get them from?
Thanks
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Hi gnv64,
Thanks for the information. This is amazing. I have a few hard copies of MIR books and have been looking to extend my collection. Could you please post the links of the books you have scanned.
Thanks in advance
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the books of mir publications r top class like biological books origin of man-nenstrukh, how reliable is the brain..etc. mir(peace) publications played a top priority during indo-soviet cultural tieup. many more mystery books on biochemical-biological astronomical science achivements that soviet union made came face to face through mir publications.
great books.
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Hi,Physical paradoxes and Sophism by Lange link is dead.pls update
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Hi. Could anyone please tell me if Progress publishers (Progoti Prokashon) still exist? I have been looking for books, translated in Bengali, written by Vassili Ian 1.Genghis Khan (1939) 2.Batu (1942) 3.To Last Sea (1955). I managed to get Genghis Khan in Bangla translation but have been unable so far with the other two! Could anyone shed some light please?
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I dont know how to say thank to you. I was in 4th standard too when i first read the Book ” All about the stars” in Hindi “Aao Doorbeen Dekhein” i have still that book and its very near to my heart. at times when russia was just like my second home in my imagination. i am searching Papa jab bachche the and Teen ghamandi billian. if anyone can share. once again thank you
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Hi Brother. I am looking for this book “Aao Doorbeen Dekhein” for quite some time. I had this book at my native but as I am away from home for long time, it just got missed and I am not able to find it. Can you please advise where can I book this book or if it all it is possible for you t share that book with me through email or somehow. Please advise me. My email id is AkashS04@gmail.com. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Akash…
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http://www.peoplespublishinghouse.in/ You can find Papa jab bachche the here. But I couldn’t find Teen Ghamandi Billian. Even I’m searching for it. Did you have a luck in finding it? If yes, then please share the details.
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At time i had yhree copies of teen ghamandi billiyan brand new from current book dipot kanpurin 2003 but unfortunately missedthem during transfers.
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dear artworx,
why don’t you scan “aao doorbeen dekhen” and upload it?
s.sanjay
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I am looking for a popular science title TEMPERATURE which I badly need. I have @ 100 + MIR titles which I can share. Could U kindly help.
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I am happy to help. What can I do for you?
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As a start you can update us about the translations of the books in local languages and if possible make copies of them. Also if you already have some of the books for which the links are dead, you can update them.
D
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it has been written my fried that i need TEMPRATURE
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Vijay,
Needless to say I am also fanatic fan of mir books.
I am from salem, tamil nadu, where r you from?, if you like i can help with
Copying/ scanning books, please mail me at. pentapixels@gmail.com
Regards
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kindly send me the link from where I can download all book from mir publications. my email id is
amitget@rediffmail.com
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Links are in posts. Also see FAQs.
D
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kindly send me the link from where I can download all book from mir publications. my email id is sunilparikh@ymail.com
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The links are in the individual pages.
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I saved the zip file of the book (Problems in Geometry); but there is an error in extracting the files. Could you please fix it? I tried another book; same problem exists for this book as well. Could you please fix this problem?
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Read the FAQs for resolving errors.
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There is a chilean website with MIR books in spanish, and some of them, in other languages (english, french and portuguese)
http://www.elibros.cl/
Here you have a list with MIR books in english (available to download in PDF files)
A course of Differential Geometry and Topology by A. Mishchenko – A. Fomenko
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=18
Introduction to Topology by Yu. Borisovich
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=291
Introductory Mathematics for Engineers by A.D. Myskis
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=292
Probabilities of the Quantum World by D. Danin
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=415
Problems in mathematical statistics by G. Ivchenko
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=469
Strenth of materials by N.M. Belyaev
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=504
Structural Mechanics by A. Darkov – V. Kuznetsov
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=505
The Relativistic Theory of Gravitation by A. Logunov – M. Mestvirishvili
http://www.elibros.cl/ficha_libro.php?id=528
Regards from the Basque Country.
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Thanks for sharing Jarban!
Some of the books from this site are already in. For example Borisovich, Danin, Logunov, Ivchenko.
D
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Hi, Is there a way to get BS belikov General methods of solving physics problems or a link.Wil be very helpful
Kudos for the gr8 efforts
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Hi friends I am searching for “At the crossroads of infinity” where do I get it (ebook).
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There is a website http://www.en.bookfi.org, you can download free any book from there..
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please follow my blog for the translated books in Indian Languages
http://www.booksofsovietunion.blogspot.com
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That is a great blog, I know about some books where published through progress publishers in malayalam
Recent death of moscow gopalakrishnan on TOI ,which is how I came to know that some books are there in malayalam.Any ways great effort. Great to see there are people who put effort to digitize these precious books even in my soil.Great work!!!!!.
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In my childhood I got to read some soviet books. They are very fascinating and exciting for young children. Now I have none. Can someone do a favour to me with providing link for or providing scanned pdf for these old soviet books. I m interested in hindi english and punjabi soviet books. I shall be highly obliged to anybody who help me. My email id is shallytaran@gmail.com
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Hey damitr, first of all, dude, you are awesome. I found a 1989 book in my school library by mir a while ago, it was Electrons and Crystals from the science for everyone series and it was really fun so I searched and found Silhouettes of Chemistry of the same series but could not find anymore but when I started looking for these books I came across your site and you made my life awesome with all these great titles. Thank you for all this!
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I have myself printed 4 copies of the Childrens Picture Stories : Nikolai Radlov in very high quality paper in Denmark.
I am selling one for Rs. 500 + postage (no profit no loss). Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks and regards,
Ankur Mehta.
Email: ankurmehta1@yahoo
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I have myself printed 4 copies of the Childrens Picture Stories : Nikolai Radlov in very high quality paper in Denmark.
I am selling one for Rs. 500 + postage (no profit no loss). Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks and regards,
Ankur Mehta
ankurmehta1@yahoo
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Dear ankur. MIR publication was from communist era which was against the capitalists unethical means of making money and you are doing exactly the same. I suppose mir titles owner damitr distributing these books for free and you are making hefty amount out of these.
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if anyone is interested in purchasing old soviet era books of mir publications /Progress publishers or raduga publishers please contact me anirbanukilgeet@gmail.com
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I still have my daughter’s collection.
It is hard to part, I can feel her pleasure, astonishment and giggle in each book
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i have some soviet books for sale. you can contact rahul.3mcreation@gmail.com
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Can you send a catalog with suggested prices?
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Dear Book Lovers,
Where i can get soviet printed Malayalam (All Categories) Books ? If any body willing to sell Soviet printed malayalam books in bulk kindly let me know..
santhosh@happyaccounts.in
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old soviet era orignal books of mir raduga etc for sale kindly contact anirbanukilgeet@gmail.com
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Hi. I have many Raduga & Mir books in hindi & english for sale. If interested you can email me rahul.3mcreation@gmail.com or whatsapp on 9780051220
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Do you have teen ghamandi billiyaan
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I am literally in sweet shock when I got this site. MIR makes me a ferocious reader. It was my friend when I was young. I am so happy. Thank you all who contributed MIR .
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I am not sure if it is MIR or Raduga Published but I remember from my childhood (Late 1960s and 70s) the famous Children poem by Aleksander Pushkin, Tale of a fisherman and golden fish in Hindi. Translated beautifully to a poem in Hindi. Somebody has uploaded the Original Russian version animated video in You tube but no where to find the Hindi version. By any chance any of the book collector is aware of this publication? Sort of A4 sized booklet maybe 15/16 sheets of pages illustrated with Hindi poem text
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I have the english book. If you drop an email to me, I’ll scan & send it . my email is pathomitra@gmail.com
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I’m very pleased with Authors and Mir Publishers.I have about 15 ebooks of this publisher and printed 2 of them.In particular,Irodov’s books are very awesome.
Thanks.
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My friend can you arrange books of chemistry?
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There are several. Browse through the site. https://mirtitles.org/category/chemistry/
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Damitr, my friend , I will be highly obliged to you if you will manage to arrange books organic , inorganic and physical chemistry also.
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Cheers from Portugal!
I have been following this site for years. It is an amazing public service that truly honors Mir legacy. I have found here very important books I was searching for.
At this time I have 45 Mir books (in paper) in Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish, covering subjects on Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering. Unfortunately, I really do not have the time to scan and upload them, But I hope to start doing something about it one day, at least for the ones translated in English that are yet to be uploaded.
Best regards and thank you for all your effort. It is much appreciated!
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Thanks for the kind words. We look forward to your contributions!
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