Steve Rosenberg

Why did you pick that song?

It was the first song that came to mind, but actually thinking back to it, I think it was quite appropriate.

Because there's a line in the song, you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle made for two.

And that's how I felt at the time.

I did feel as if Britain and Russia were on this bicycle made for two.

And we were going to be going in the same direction.

And it was the start of a great new world.

And it just didn't work out.

So I joined the BBC Moscow Bureau in 1997 as a producer.

But in 1999, this was New Year's Eve, the Bureau was empty.

I was the only one in the office at that moment in the morning.

And suddenly there was breaking news.

Boris Yeltsin had resigned.

Huge news, right?

And I was the only one around.

So I had to, muggins here, do the first dispatch, radio dispatch on this breaking news.

So as I was sweating profusely, I managed to stumble through my first kind of national BBC dispatched.

Boris Yeltsin always said he would see out his full term in office.

Today, he told Russians he'd changed his mind.

So in a sense, my career as a reporter began the same day as Vladimir Putin's career as president.