MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/. The livestream of the marathon reading of great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina raked up about 3 million views on YouTube, a deputy director of the Moscow-based Tolstoy museum said on Thursday.

"We selected Anna Karenina not only beacuse it is one of Leo Tolstoy's famous novels but also because it is one of the best novels in the world," Fyokla Tolstaya said.

Tolstaya, a great-great-granddaughter of the Russian writer, said Anna Karenina is a novel about simple things, such as "family, love and sense of duty,"

More than 700 volunteers from Moscow, St.Petersburg, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, New York, Paris, London took part in the 36-hour marathon event that took place on October 3-4.

Among the readers were Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president's press-secretary, Olympic figure-skating champion Adelina Sotnikova, as well as Russian movie stars, film directors and ordinary Internet users.