Stephen Dalziel is Russian specialist who started learning the Russian language when he was 13 years old. While studying for his degree in Russian Studies at the University of Leeds he spent a year on a British Council Scholarship at Kiev State University in the USSR, and was there when one of the defining moments of the Cold War occurred: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Returning from Germany, Stephen joined the Soviet Studies Research Centre at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Using unclassified primary Soviet sources, the Centre worked closely with the Armed Forces to give an accurate picture of the situation in the Soviet Armed Forces by way of lectures and research papers. Stephen continued to travel to the USSR, as well as making frequent visits to Berlin – West and East.
In 1988, Stephen moved to the BBC World Service where as Russian Affairs Analyst he was to spend 16 years as a correspondent and broadcaster. He followed the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and reported on and from the USSR and post-Soviet Russia on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos of the post-Soviet years. He interviewed many Soviet and Russian dignitaries, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Eduard Shevardnadze.
Since leaving the BBC in 2004, Stephen spent five years as Executive Director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, and now runs his own development business. This involves media and presentation training, editing, writing and translating from Russian to English.
While at the BBC, Stephen wrote and presented a number of radio series and he has had numerous articles published, as well as contributing chapters to books. His own book, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, was published in 1993. He is still regularly interviewed for BBC Radio and TV.
