There was more freedom in Moscow in the late 1980s than in our country
Stáhnout obrázek
Ondřej Soukup was born in Prague on 6 October 1971. His father Václav joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) in 1974 and worked as an editor at the weekly Tvorba. In 1984, the father received a job offer in Moscow and the family moved. The witness graduated from high school in Moscow in the spring of 1988 and enrolled at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, majoring in history of archives. He attended the History-Archive Institute during his first semester in Moscow. The father‘s contract expired in the spring of 1989 and the family returned to Prague. Ondřej transferred to the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and took an active part in the student strikes. After the revolution he worked in various institutions as an archivist. He started in the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) archives in Lidový Dům. In 1994 he joined Free Europe as a researcher and editor of texts from the Russian press. In 1996 he worked at the Institute of International Relations and was editor of the journal Mezinárodní politika. In 1999 he joined People in Need. In 2006 he moved to Moscow to be with his future wife and her daughter. They welcomed son Jiří. The witness worked as a foreign correspondent for Hospodářské noviny. In 2008 his son Severin was born and the family moved back to Prague. Ondřej Soukup joined Hospodářské noviny as an editor. Since 2023, he has worked at Czech Radio as one of the top experts on the Soviet Union, Russia and post-Soviet states. He was living in Prague in 2023.
