I first met Derk Sauer in Moscow in 1992, amid the ruins of the Soviet Union. I'd fallen in with journalists at a new English-language newspaper called The Moscow Times, and I often hung around the paper's office in a Radisson hotel. You could pop straight from your desk into a hotel-room shower, which was quite handy in Moscow then. One day I met the paper's founder: a tiny Dutchman, who, amid his eager young staff, resembled a bespectacled scoutmaster.
1992年,我在莫斯科初识德克•绍尔(Derk Sauer),当时苏联刚解体不久。之前,我结识了英文报纸《莫斯科时报》(The Moscow Times)的一些记者,还经常去该报社设在一家丽笙(Radisson)酒店的办公室“串门”。坐在办公桌前,一起身便能在酒店客房淋浴,这种便利在当时的莫斯科还很少见。有一天,我遇见了报纸的创始人,他是一位小个子的荷兰人,戴着眼镜,站在朝气蓬勃的年轻员工中间,就像是童子军领队。