Sarah Hurst is a freelance journalist in the UK and author of the @XSovietNews Twitter account about Russia. Her first article about Russia was published in The Times in 1990 after she interviewed Soviet Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin on a sixth-form college trip. She now publishes a weekly newsletter, The Russia Report. As a journalist and Russian translator, Sarah has worked for the St. Petersburg Press, the BBC and Reuters. In April 2014 she founded the X Soviet blog to cover current events in Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states. In 2015 she made the documentary “The Way to Ukraine” about Russian political activists claiming asylum in Ukraine. Her books include A Shrimp Learnt to Whistle and Curse of Kirsan: Adventures in the Chess Underworld.