Tsarist royal family, the church, private individuals and museums in the Soviet Union. About the topic matter, Iljne has stated "[The sale] was ludicrous. They sold all these treasures to buy tractors but it made almost no difference to the state's budget." According to The Daily Telegraph in 2000, Russia's culture minister, Mikhail Shvydkoi, used the book's launch as a platform to accuse modern communists of hypocrisy, stating "Those politicians who see themselves as descendants of the party which sold these treasures abroad are especially jealous of the title of defenders of the national inheritance. This book destroys that myth." In The Hedonist's Guide to Art, a 2010 collection of essays by critics, curators, collectors and critics, Iljine outlines such incidents as Putin opening a show for the Guggenheim in 2005. In 2013, Iljine was a project director and co-editor for the book Selling Russia's Treasures, published by the M.T. Abraham Foundation Press. The anthology is composed primarily of translated essays first published in Sold Treasures of Russia, with the addition of material such as archival photos. Odessa Memories (2003) In 2003 Iljine edited and co-authored the book Odessa Memories. Published by the University of Washington Press, it has contributions by writers such as Iljine, German novelist Bel Kaufman, author Oleg Gubar, and American historian Patricia Herlihy. Iljine, who had first visited Odessa in 1995, collected the visual material. According to a 2007 review in the Jewish Quarterly Review, "Odessa Memories is an attractive collection of scholarly, memoiristic, and visual perspectives on Odessa built around a rich album of visual material from the city, particularly in its last pre-Revolutionary years: post-cards, posters, advertisements, photographs, even candy-wrappers." In early 2013, Iljine collected songs and lyrics for the album Odessa Memories, which has stair imagery from Battleship Potemkin on the cover. First published by the University of Washington Press, it was later translated for the Russian publishing house Shamrock, a company known mostly for publishing art books. Memories of Baku (2013) In 2013 Iljine edited and co-authored the book Memories of Baku: Beyond the Land of Fire, which uses a collection of photographs, art and essays to show the changes in Azerbaijan as it became a large oil-producing nation, particularly in the capital city of Baku. Iljine had first started the project after obtaining a postcard collection from Baku, and his interest had turned into a "passion for discovering local impressions from