Veresen explained that the attitude towards him was primarily due to the work of his father Konstantin Sytnik, who was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
“A very simple answer: no. And there is an explanation why. After [советского лидера Иосифа] Stalin had secret instructions at all levels: members of the Central Committee and families of members The Central Committee should not recruit, should not approach, should not look in that direction,” the TV presenter replied.
According to the journalist, the special services began to monitor and accompany him when he was already working for the BBC television channel.
Gordon asked whether the KGB recruited Veresny’s fellow students.
“I even know who it was [на сотрудничество]How are we doing? I know those who became career KGB officers and those who just worked, called their friends a bit and then, perhaps, did not feel like working. Or the KGB had no desire at all. We had the KGB at our faculty. We found enough nationalist types and they came to “make cowards” – in short, interrogations. There was a whole story there,” the TV presenter recalled.
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Veresen said that outside the program they had a course called “the study of socio-political movements” (SPM). If students studied Marxism in pairs, in the OIDP they discussed, for example, the correct administrative structure of Ukraine.
“It was completely banned in the Dnieper region, in Slobozhanshchina, in Bukovina… Not in communist areas, in district committees, but in such things. And that was already unbelievable,” the journalist recalled. [от вербовки]. Just as now everyone in the army wants to have armor, we had armor. Because in the OIDP we often met, drank beer, and true nationalists had their own statutes, where it was written that in the future non-Soviet Ukraine alcohol, prostitution and pornography would be prohibited; to be prohibited!… And when the KGB found out that these guys were drinking beer, they immediately came back and said: “These are definitely not enemies.”
Context
Mykola Veresen (real name Nikolai Sytnik) was born in 1960. He graduated from the Faculty of History of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. After graduating from university, he was an archaeologist-restorer, a sailor, and a history teacher at a school.
In the 1990s, he began his career as a journalist. He has worked for the BBC, many Ukrainian TV channels (“1+1”, “Channel 5”, K1, “First”, “Direct”, “Apostrophe TV”) and radio stations. Currently, he hosts a news marathon on the Espreso channel.
