Skarzhynska's activities helped many political dissidents, drawing attention from the Swiss gendarmes and the Russian intelligence. Among her acquaintances and correspondents in Switzerland were both Lenin and Stalin. She published a magazine in Russian, "Зарубежом" ("Abroad"), which carried articles of interest, like the forced exodus of Georgians from their homeland and information on the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). She pressed the federal government of Switzerland to provide a nursery for the orphans of Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian, and Turkish soldiers who were killed during the Balkan wars and raised the funds to finance it. Though she was apolitical, her journal carried evaluations of various revolutionary movements, including from leaders of both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, in an attempt to explore the ideological thought of her time. In 1913, she broke off all relations with revolutionaries, believing they had used her dreams of improving education to advance their own agendas.