Penza, 17 November 2017. PenzaNews. The diploma was awarded to the director of the regional Lermontov library Marina Osipova as a result of the contest "The most reading region", the results of which were announced at the 6th St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum. This was reported on the website of the cultural institution.

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The website devoted to the event explains that the organizer of the contest is the Russian Book Union with the support of the Federal Press and Mass Communications Agency.

The contest began in May, 2017. 84 regions expressed willingness to participate.

Each region had to present the most significant literary project over 2016-2017, information about the development of book and reading infrastructure and literary traditions.

Saint Petersburg was the winner and literary leader in Russia in the current year.

The Kaliningrad region, Moscow, and Tatarstan became prizewinners.

The 20 finalists of the contest also include the Astrakhan, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kursk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Ulyanovsk, Yaroslavl regions, Crimea, Khakassia, the Yamalo-Nenets and Nenets Autonomous Okrugs, the Stavropol and Krasnoyarsk regions.

The highest ratings were received by the regions that had been creative when implementing the project and showed its social and cultural significance, the trend for maintaining or creating new literary traditions, population coverage and originality of the idea.