[1] Her highest individual honours were three bronze medals in the 3000 metres at the 1986 Goodwill Games, 1986 European Athletics Indoor Championships, and the 1989 Summer Universiade.

[2][3][4] She helped the Soviet women's team to three straight titles at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships between 1988 and 1990, teaming with Yelena Romanova, Marina Rodchenkova, Olga Bondarenko, Nadezhda Stepanova, and Natalya Sorokivskaya among others.

[9] Chistyakova was born in Tytuvėnai in the Lithuanian SSR of the Soviet Union, one of nine children in her family.

A resident of Vilnius, she was a long-list candidate for the Order and Justice Party in the 2016 Seimas elections.

[10] Among her outings on the professional circuit, she won the Cross der Vlaanderen in 1990, and the Silvesterlauf München and Neusser Sommernachtslauf in 1993.