A reader of diaries or memoirs of a famous person - a writer, politician or scientist - is usually attracted by the scale of the author's personality, his thoughts and assessments, subtle observations and witty statements. The records left by non-famous people are of a different value: they allow us to understand what the mindset, daily life and social practices of large sections of society, the culture of the “silent majority” were like. The book “Voice from the Crowd” contains the diaries of Leningrad journalist Vyacheslav Ivanovich Tyuev (b. 1931), which he kept in the 1950s–1970s. V. I. Tyuev studied at Leningrad State University in the Slavic department (in the Yugoslav group), but by the end of his studies, relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had deteriorated. The graduate's knowledge of the Serbian language was not useful, and he began working in large-circulation newspapers in Leningrad - first in a factory, then in a police department, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. Tyuev’s book captures everyday Soviet life, describes the unsightly life of collective farms in the Leningrad region (such observations could not penetrate the press), and records the attitude of “ordinary” people to the authorities (in particular, Tyuev wrote down the jokes circulating in society about Khrushchev). Finally, his diaries contain information about Leningrad teachers and students who later became famous literary critics and journalists.