Downloading Articles by Russian Researchers Using the Sci-Hub Resource

Abstract

Abstract: On the basis of the 28 million downloaded articles posted by J. Bohannon and A. Elbakyan on the Internet on the Sci-Hub resource for the period from September 1, 2015 to February 29, 2016, about 1.5 million articles downloaded by Russian researchers were identified. They were distributed by publishing houses of scientific periodicals, cities, and regions of Russia, from which the download took place. As an example, among the 521 cities in Russia, the largest downloads were observed by researchers from Moscow (731 100 articles), St. Petersburg (132 600), Novosibirsk (57 500), Kazan (55 100), and Tomsk (26 400). Comparisons are made with similar downloads of Ukrainian researchers.