[1] Born in Irkutsk, Borodin was a Russian Orthodox Christian and a Soviet dissident.

In the 1960s he belonged to the anti-Communist All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSHSON).

[2] He was arrested and imprisoned in the 'strict regime' Camp 17 in 1967, and went on hunger strike there with Yuli Daniel and Aleksandr Ginzburg in 1969.

The publication of an English translation of The Story of a Strange Time led to his arrest in 1982 on charges of 'anti-Soviet propaganda'.

[3] Released after four years, in the perestroika era, Borodin was allowed to visit the West with his wife.