When Saltykoff asked for leave of absence from the service to go home during the holidays, he was commanded to produce his writings.

Although these early writings contained hardly a hint of the satirical talents which he afterwards developed, the person to whom was intrusted the task of making a report of them (and who was a sworn enemy to the natural school and "The Annals of the Fatherland") gave such an alarming account of them that the Count Tchernysheff was frightened at having so dangerous a man in his ministerial department.

The result was, that in May, 1848, a posting-troika halted in front of Saltykoff's lodgings, and the accompanying gendarme was under orders to escort the offender off to Vyatka on the instant.
In Saltykoff's case, as in the case of many another Russian writer, exile not only removed him from the distracting pleasures of life at the capital, but also laid the foundation for his future greatness.

In Vyatka, Saltykoff first served as one of the officials in the government office, but by the autumn he was appointed the official for special commissions immediately attached to the governor's service.

He was a valued friend in the family of the vice-governor, for whose young daughters he wrote a "Short History of Russia," and after winning further laurels in the service, he was allowed to return to St.
Petersburg in 1856, when he married one of the young girls, and published his "Governmental Sketches," with the materials for which his exile had furnished him.