On March 21, long-term Putin adversary Marina Salye passed away at the age of 77.  The origins of the one-time St Petersburg councillor’s battle with Putin can be traced back to 1990s when Salye attempted to expose the then deputy mayor’s allegedly corrupt management of food bartering in the Leningrad administration.  During the 90s, she proved a formidable critic, and as of 2000 endured a decade-long spell in the political and actual wilderness as a result of her stance on the man she predicted would become the president of a ‘corrupt oligarchy’.  Putin biographer Masha Gessen has written a moving tribute to the life of this dissident heroine in the New York Times. In the extract below Gessen explains how the recent anti-Putin protests returned Salye to public view: