She studied rocks across the Soviet Union, but during Mikhail Gorbachev's attempted political openness, or glasnost, in the late 1980s, Salye rose as a leader of a new group of democratic activists.

[7] In 1988-1990, Salye was one of the leaders of Leningrad People's Front (LNF), one of the largest and most pro-perestroika local political clubs in the country.

Even though in January 1992 both Afanasyev and Salye were elected co-chairs of Democratic Russia's Coordinating Council, they ended up in a minority and soon resigned from their positions within the movement.

[9] In 1995, she was one of the leading candidates on a slate led by then-Governor elect of the Sverdlovsk Region, Eduard Rossel, which failed to gain seats in the Duma.

[10] In 1992, Salye headed a special commission in St. Petersburg, which found that on the basis of documents signed by Vladimir Putin, then chairman of the city's Foreign Relations Committee, and his deputy, the city had exported rare earth metals, oil products, and other raw materials for over 100 million dollars.

[11] Salye suspected that Putin and his deputy had granted the export permits to companies that disappeared after receiving the materials.

The memoirs are based on an archive of documents containing illegal decisions of the city administration including Vladimir Putin.