When I came to Moscow as an ARD correspondent in the early 1990s, I had this passionate ambition to penetrate everything, everything about the new Russia and the dying Soviet empire. I wanted to become a Russia understander, a connoisseur of collapses, upheavals, awakenings. I just had to love the people and their hopes for the future back then. Unlike the West, Russia was not chosen. I lived in an incomplete society, which seemed to move forward jerkily, sometimes jerking bloody, only to take at least one step backwards and then stand still for a long time. Moscow was full of reporters, analysts and business people who wanted to be there as world history unfolded. So much energy! High on geopolitical shifts – where else in the world did this happen?
Sonia Mikich: Once upon a time Russia was mine – media
