Marta Dyczok Марта Дичок

January 27 & 29, 1996 27 та 29 січня 1996

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The Oral History Усна Історія

of Independent Ukraine Незалежної України

1988-1991 1988-1991

by Margarita HewkoÓ Автори: Маргарита ГевкоÓ

Sara SieversÓ Сара СіверсÓ

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Marta Dyczok Марта Дичок

Interviewed by: Інтерв’юер:

Sara Sievers and Margarita Hewko Сара Сіверс та Маргарита Гевко

January 27, 1996 27 січня 1996

Tape 1 Касета 1

It’s January 27, 1996 and I am Sara Sievers interviewing Marta Dyczok at her home in Kiev. Marta, thanks for being here this afternoon.

A pleasure.

Can you describe briefly when you first came here to Kiev and what the purpose of your first trip here was?

(00:01:00) My first trip to live in Ukraine was in March, 1991. I came here to do research for my doctoral dissertation on Ukrainian refugees at the end of World War II which I have since completed, successfully defended in May of ‘95, so I am now a doctor. And I decided that though although archival research is very interesting and that was my primary purpose for coming here, I wanted to do some journalism as well. So before coming out I arranged to work for the Daily Telegraph which was a British paper. I was studying in Oxford so that was my obvious place to go, the British press. I came here to do research and try some journalism, both of which were very interesting, and I ended up staying longer than I had planned to. That’s what first brought me here.

How did you go about finding a job as a journalist in this part of the world (00:02:00) and why were you particularly interested in Ukraine, I realize you were studying you thesis, but?

Why was I interested in Ukraine? Because this is where I was doing my thesis. If I had gone to another country I would have tried to get a job as a journalist wherever I had been. Why I had wanted to be a journalist at that time was because in 1991 Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were probably the biggest news stories around and it was something that was catching the world’s attention. Ukraine was just getting there in terms of news and exposure and I thought the story was going to build. And they were going to need someone to cover it. And I was going to be there. So I called up the Telegraph while I was still in Oxford and I spoke to their Moscow bureau chief and he suggested that I call them when there were more interesting stories, or in anything happened.

The first story I covered for them was the visit of Douglas Hurt, who was then (00:03:00) the British Foreign Minister. He visited Kiev in early March of ‘91. And at the time that was really significant because he was visiting the Soviet Union, but his first stop was Kiev, not Moscow. That was the first time a Western leader had not gone [first to] Moscow [then to] Kiev . And he made a point of coming here first. That was my first story.

I then went to Moscow to do some research in the archives there and decided to approach the Guardian because that newspaper is slightly closer to my own views and political inclinations. Most British papers, all British papers in the Western press had their offices up in Moscow at that time. There were no offices anywhere in the former Soviet Union except Moscow. So I went there and offered my services and was hired on a trial basis. It was pretty straightforward at that point because very few people wanted to (00:04:00) live in places like Kyiv, or Minsk, or Alma Ata, at that time. So, somebody walking in and saying I’m going to live there and I’ll file stories for you, they were pretty receptive. It was partially good timing on my part, where I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

What other Western press had representatives in Kiev, stringers or correspondents at the time you were here?

When I arrived there were three Western journalists working here. Susan Viets was the first Western journalist to come here and she worked for the Independent. Interestingly, she worked for the Guardian in Budapest before coming here. When she decided to move to Ukraine, the Guardian wasn’t interested. They didn’t think there was enough news happening in Ukraine to warrant a stringer here. So she then moved to the Independent. The second journalist was Robert Seely who worked for (00:05:00) the Times in London. The Independent, by the way, is a British paper. And again he had approached the Guardian in the fall of 1990 and they again turned him down saying, there weren’t enough stories, not enough news in Ukraine. So he came out for the Times. The third person to come out was Marta Kolomayets. She came out in the winter of 1990, winter 1990–91. She works for the Ukrainian Weekly and she’s still here. She strings for Associated Press and Newsweek and various others. And I was the fourth. I got the job approaching the Guardian in the spring of ‘91. They figured there was enough news and since there were two other British news journalists there they figured right, we’ll take someone at this point.

Can you explain some of the difficulties that you encountered being a journalist here, especially one of the early Western journalists on the ground in Kiev, getting stories, filing stories, living conditions?

(00:06:00) The problems were surprising actually. They were mainly technical problems. Living here was difficult for anybody, for a Westerner or a Ukrainian. Availability of goods was pretty minimal. So, life just took longer. To get coffee or something, you had to spend the day looking for it rather than popping across the street as you would today.

In terms of finding news stories, it was more difficult than it is today because there were no networks of information set up that were open to Westerners. So for us to find out what was happening, when a press conference was going on, who was giving it, how to get into the press conference, where it was happening? This was all very difficult, and over time we managed to make it easier because once we were sort of established and our names were on all the appropriate lists then it (00:07:00) became a little easier. But initially something as basic as getting an accreditation, that didn’t exist. Susan [Viets] was the first person to ever make that request of the Foreign Ministry in Ukraine and they didn’t quite know what to do with it. And by the time I came around, they still didn’t have an idea what exactly they were going to do.

Their one request was could -they asked everybody this that went through- could we help them get a laminating machine because they wanted to issue us accreditation cards with photographs, proper accreditation. But they didn’t have the equipment and could we somehow assist them in this? This was the very, very beginning. What we initially got was a letter typed on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs letterhead saying, “This is to certify that Marta Dyczok is an accredited journalist working for the Guardian, a British newspaper from such and such a time”, and the dates. They gave us accreditation for three month periods which then had to (00:08:00) be renewed each time. And you can imagine how that little piece of paper got tattered because you would have to carry it around in your passport. You always had to show who you were so you had to have that passport plus this letter. And that often didn’t get you into anywhere, just identifying yourself. They would say, “Well, you’re not on the list here and you can’t come in.”

Also in those early days there were two very different sort of groups. There were the local journalists and the Western journalists. We were not allowed into lots of things that the local journalists were allowed to. I mean, first of all we didn’t know a lot of things that were happening, but if we happened to find out through our local colleagues very often we weren’t allowed into things. Which is no longer the case. Now, if there is a press event, anything, a briefing or press conference it is [open] to all journalists. But then, Western journalists were restricted from certain things. So those were the difficulties.

The other technical difficulties were actually getting your information (00:09:00) out. I filed over the phone and the Guardian didn’t like to accept faxes from places like Ukraine because the phone lines were terrible so the faxes would often get garbled. When you are working on a deadline and you need the story at a certain time, having to re-contact you stringer took more time that was worthwhile. So the way we had to do it was read our stories down the phone line. This was the time you couldn’t get a direct line out of Ukraine. So you had to order a line through the international operator which sometimes came through on time and sometimes didn’t. And even if it did come through, the quality of the line wasn’t always great. Sometimes the line got cut off, sometimes the person at the other end couldn’t hear what you were saying. You’ve got this copytaker in London [to] whom you’re trying to say “The leader of the Ukrainian movement Rukh” “What (00:10:00) was that dear?” “R-U-K-H”. “P-U-K-H?” Spelling names … they just loved [Vyacheslav] Chornovyl. On a number of occasions misprints occurred because the quality of the line was so bad. [There were] words that they just didn’t know, and names particularly they just got wrong and they couldn’t double check. I don’t remember any cases where I didn’t file a story. I think we all had that record. That no matter what we somehow got our call through and got the story filed. Sometimes it was for the second edition if we missed the first deadline. But yes, it was pretty interesting.

How much did you work with Ukrainian journalists when you were here and how much camaraderie was there among the Western journalists and then between Western and Ukrainian [journalists]?

Among the Western journalists we were best friends. We had no choice. (00:11:00) The interesting thing was, people who would probably never have become friends or even had anything to do with each other had we met in other circumstances, became very close friends here. We were stuck in a hostile environment and we had to pull resources for any of us to make it. That has really changed now. Information sharing was just standard because it was so difficult to find out what was going on where. If anybody knew anything we all told each other. There were just four of us so it was pretty easy for us to get on the phone and say, “Susan, Bob, Marta, you know, da ta da” We all packed into one car and went. We had to work together in order to produce anything. So that friendship, camaraderie, dependence formed really strong bonds that will stay for a long time.

Initially we had very, very little contact with local journalists. Partially (00:12:00) because, they didn’t ... I was about to say that they didn’t want contact with us, but I don’t really mean that. Most people in Ukraine at that time still thought Westerns to be exotic, scary, slightly things to be stayed away from. And this was also true with the journalists. It was very curious that they were afraid to come and talk to you or if they did talk to you they only spoke to you very briefly, very generally. The only exception to that was Mykola Veresen that worked for the BBC. He is the first and for a long time the only Ukrainian who worked as a journalist that was very easy to talk to, very friendly and very helpful. And he actually built that bridge between the (00:13:00) Western and Ukrainian journalists. He was friends with the Ukrainian journalists, obviously, and he easily became friends with us. He convinced his friends that we were okay and convinced us that they weren’t afraid of us and that they weren’t all idiots. He was a key figure in bringing people together in that sense.

There was also a feeling that the Ukrainian journalists at the time were not terribly interesting as colleagues in the sense that they were very restricted as to what they could do at that time. I remember one incident or hearing about one incident which happened just before I came out. That was indicative of just the differences in the way they approach journalism. Again that has changed now, but then there were huge, (00:14:00) huge differences. It was during the visit of Boris Yeltsin to Kyiv. And that was when Ukraine and Russia signed their first agreement friendship treaty or something like this.

When was that?

This would have been the summer of 1990, I believe. Bob Seely was there. Susan Viets was there. I wasn’t but I heard from both of them this story and from others. Bob Seely was a somewhat aggressive, assertive go getter type. He stood up and asked a question. It was a difficult question, I can’t remember what the question was, but he asked it both to Kravchuk, and Yelstin. One of the Ukrainian journalists stood up and apologized to the two leaders on behalf of his ill-mannered (00:15:00) Western colleague for misbehaving and posing such a difficult and embarrassing question. They were very much ... frightened of asking difficult questions. They did ask questions at press conferences but not difficult questions and their concept of journalistic integrity was slightly different from what it is now.

Another situation that I remember was a story that I covered because I was there and I read about it in one of the local papers by another journalist who was there and he misrepresented events totally. I knew this guy and I said, “This isn’t what happened, and you know this isn’t what happened.” And he said, “Well, you know, pretty much what happened and I just wanted to make it more colorful, interesting and dramatic.” I was like, “You can’t do that, this isn’t journalism. This is fiction.”