The article analyses archival documents and photographs that bear testimony to varied activities of Daniil Alexandrovich Granin in 1960-2010s. The past year 2019 was marked by the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Daniil Aleksandrovich, who was not only a writer, publicist, and playwright, but also an outstanding public figure. His public work and creativity is not yet fully understood. Paradoxical as it may seem, biographer knows next to nothing about the well-known writer and humanist. Consequently, the authors aim to study the unknown facts of his biography, as they affected his writing and public work. Photo documents tell of long-term cooperation of D.A. Granin with outstanding literary figures, including B.N. Polevoy, V.F. Panova, A.A. Prokofiev, M.A. Dudin. Photographs bear witness to his rare periods of leisure, his vacationing with his wife R.M. Mayorova in Karlovy Vary (Czechoslovakia), in particular, and to his meeting with activists of the relief society “Leningrad,” as well as his numerous meetings with readers. What is important, the published photos represent a half-century period of his active creative and public work. Most photographs depict the writer at work in his hometown, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), of which he became an honorary citizen in 2005. The article concludes that the work of D.A. Granin was close and understandable not only to the technical intelligentsia, but to a much wider circle of Soviet (Russian) readers as well. Numerous archival photographs of Daniil Aleksandrovich’s meetings with fans from various strata of society prove this.