It’s unlikely that in 1970, when I was 12, I could have imagined myself covering the collapse of an empire. Nor could I have dreamed that 51 years later, my passion for Russia would still be alive, if battered by its barbaric invasion of its neighbour, Ukraine, in February 2022.
But back then, when I was a young girl, I did dream of being a foreign correspondent; in particular, a foreign correspondent in what was then the Soviet Union. From that romantic notion to doom-scrolling social media for news on the latest atrocity in Ukraine is quite the narrative arc.
