On June 17-18, Kazan hosted the 6th Summer Book Festival organized by the Smena Center for Contemporary Culture, the National Library of Tatarstan and the Kazan Parks and Squares Directorate with the support of SIBUR's social investment program, The Formula for Good Deeds.

The festival’s activities were spread over several locations. In addition to the main venue at the Black Lake Park, its event also took place at the National Library of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Smena Center for Contemporary Culture, and at the MOÑ, a theatrical space.

Over the two days that the Summer Book Festival lasted, it featured more than 50 meetings with writers, lectures, discussions, master classes, tours around Kazan, three new exhibitions’ openings and a book fair with more than 80 Russian publishers in attendance.

On August 30-31, the festival was hosted by Nizhnekamsk. The festival’s headline event was its book fair held on the square in front of the Jalil Theater Complex on August 30, on the Day of the Republic of Tatarstan. More than 30 publishing houses from all over the country attended the fair.

Right there, on the square in front of the Jalil Theater Complex, more than 200 children were able to attend master classes organized specially for them. The festival’s children's program featured a presentation of a new book published with the support of SIBUR, The Story of One Summer, or 45 Facts about Plastic.

On the evening of August 30 and 31, the Jalil Complex’s auditorium hosted two separate showings of the play Voices of the City of N produced as part of the efforts of the Citizens' Theater Laboratory.

Yet another block of the festival’s activities featured a professional program for the city's culture scene workers that included a media laboratory session titled "Nizhnekamsk through the eyes of its natives" put on by the Inde publication, and the School of Cultural Management where participants could attend lectures about regional cultural establishment, their promotion, and social networks.

As part of the festival, the Smena Center for Contemporary Culture published reprints of Soviet-era children's books that continue the Kustoda book series, and launched several special projects. These included: "I Lived, I Studied and I Strolled" featuring Yandex.Go’s electric scooters, a study "We Meet the Sun on Our Way" implemented in cooperation with the National Research University Higher School of Economics’ Institute for Cultural Research, the "Amateur" project carried out together with Ad Marginem publishing house and the Early Bird coffee shop, and many others.

Overall, the 2023 festival attracted more than 19,000 guests.