Twilight of the Soviet Union – Memoirs of a British Journalist in Moscow (325)

Cold War Conversations

Kate is sent to Moscow in 1985 to write articles for The Morning Star, a left-wing British daily newspaper founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker by the Communist Party of Great Britain. She lives in a block of flats alongside Soviet citizens and enrols her 3 children in Soviet schools.

Three weeks after Kate arrives Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power and she finds herself having to cover the disorientating number of rapid reforms and attacks on the Soviet system by its leadership for a newspaper, that had always supported the Soviet Union.

Kate is fluent in Russian, speaks with Soviet citizens on the bus or at the shops, and visits every Soviet republic bar one of the then-largest countries on Earth. In 1986 she reported on the Chernobyl disaster and was one of the first journalists to arrive in the area.

Buy the book here https://www.bannisterpublications.com/product-page/twilight-of-the-soviet-union

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0:00 Introduction and background of Kate Clark

1:32 Journey to becoming a Moscow correspondent and life in Soviet Union

11:09 Placing Ket's children in Soviet schools and their adaptation

15:10 Bureaucratic challenges

18:08 Shopping habits and emergence of supermarkets in Soviet Union

21:00 Impact of Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership and his policies

33:34 Cultural accessibility, promotion and diversity in the Soviet Union

44:36 Covering the Chernobyl disaster and its aftermath

57:17 Relations with the British embassy and dealings with Soviet security services

1:04:47 Visit to Afghanistan and reflections on its political challenges

1:09:31 Reflections on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the role of Yeltsin

1:15:30 Kate's book, "Twilight of the Soviet Union", and closing remarks

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