Marina Salye, 77, Early Putin Critic, Dies of Heart Attack

By The Moscow Times

March 22, 2012

Marina Salye, a staunch critic of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with a long-running political career, died Wednesday morning from a heart attack, Fontanka reported. She was 77 years old.

Salye, a St. Petersburg politician since the early 1990s, was a former chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Russia and a member of unregistered opposition party Parnas. She was also a People's Deputy from 1990 to September 1993 and participated in the Constitutional Council that created the nation's constitution.

Salye was a Putin critic since his time working at St. Petersburg City Hall. In 1992 she headed a commission created by the St. Petersburg City Council to investigate his activities as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, which resulted in the adoption of a resolution calling for mayor Anatoly Sobchak to fire Putin and to instruct prosecutors to investigate suspected corruption and embezzlement. Sobchak ignored the recommendations.

Before her entry into politics in the late 1980s, Salye worked as a geologist.

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