Русская версия здесь... Recently the BBC crew visited Ukraine and came to the Crimea and Yalta. We managed to interview its leader, famous BBC correspondent and Diplomatic Editor Brian Hanrahan. He started his journalist carrier in BBC in 1980s as its Northern Ireland correspondent. In 1982 during the Falklands War his phrase "I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back" made him world famous and became classic example of virtuosic avoiding of war time restrictions in world journalism.

Since then he reported for BBC about the most memorable events from all over the world. First he lived in Hong Kong and was reporting about events in Asia, including beginning of Deng Xiaoping's reforms in China, assassination of Indira Gandhi and appointment of her son as Prime Minister. Then he moves to Moscow to inform the BBC and world audience about Perestroyka of Michael Goirbachev in late 1980s. He was the one who told them about the events at the at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and handover of Hong Kong in 1997 and then reported from Poland, Romania and Berlin during the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. He made the program from New York, showing consequences of September 11^th2001. The year of 2004 brought him to Middle East to report on the attack on Yasser Arafat's headquarters and its consequences with coverage of funerals of the Palestinian leader.

One of his most famous reports on the ground was about the opening of the Berlin Wall on the 9 November 1989. In twenty years time he was back to Berlin to report about the twentieth anniversary of this event. And then at the end of November we met in Yalta and Mr. Brian Hanrahan was really kind to give us the following exclusive interview.

Alexey Soloviev: What is the reason of your visit to Ukraine and namely to the Crimea?

Brian Hanrahan: We have been making the series of reports this week and this year on the history of 1989 and the great changes that happened in Europe. We are making one final report on what was the legacy of 1989 and how did it affect the rest of Europe years after. Not only what happened but what did it mean afterwards and we wanted to come to Ukraine because it is one of the countries which is still...

Alexey Soloviev: In between ?

Brian Hanrahan: Staggering. Discovering what it means and is still working out what would legacy of 1989 means for it. So it seemed to us to be good place to look at the conflicts and difficulties as well as its immediate results.

Alexey Soloviev: Why the year of 1989 is considered to be that important in the West?

Brian Hanrahan: Because it was the year in which the Berlin Wall came down, some countries left the Warsaw pact, number of governments fell, because it was the year of revolutionary change in Europe.

Alexey Soloviev: Interesting that recently I heard the phrase on the Ukrainian TV that the Berlin Wall has not fallen down, but it moved to the border of Ukraine. In this respect, what is the image of Ukraine nowadays in the West several years after the Orange Revolution, what people feel about Ukraine now?

Brian Hanrahan: I think they feel that this is conflicted country, which is not sure which way it wants to go ...

Alexey Soloviev: How do you think is Ukraine in future going to be part of the European Union or not?

Brian Hanrahan: I do not know. A few years I would have said that there was certain inevitability about movement towards European Union on the part of Ukraine.

Now I am not so sure and I think that it has more to do with the situation inside the European Union than it has to do with anything what is happening here. I think that European Union is itself going through a period of self-searching, it in particular is uncertain whether it is going to expand further or not. Until that question is resolved it is difficult to come to any conclusions what will be in the future.

Alexey Soloviev: What can you say about this part of Ukraine? Is the Crimea and its tourist potential are interesting to tourists from the West and the EU, in particular?

Brian Hanrahan: I think, it is fascinating. There are number of different things here, which will be of great interest to anybody from Europe. In terms of Britain, immediate and obvious interest is the Crimean War, the historical era in which a lot of people in Great Britain are very concerned about. The other is the end of the Cold War and a number of different things here would interest people including the naval base at Balaclava, but also the fact, that the Black Sea fleet is here. These are things for those who are interested in this period of history and would catch their attention.

And then also the climate.

It is the reason why people come to the Crimea as this is the climate like very few others in Europe because it is warm, comfortable and pleasant to be in consistently. I have been here a couple of times and what has really caught my imagination is just how pleasant it is here

Alexey Soloviev: If to imagine that you are to develop tourism in the Crimea, then what you would start with - infrastructure or ...

Brian Hanrahan: I know, what you mean. I would say three things. One: try to make it more accessible to English speakers, even if it is only by getting English language or Latin language sings put up so people could read them. Two: make the hotels more conform with what people expect from Europe. I am not sure that average European visitor even in your comfortable hotels feels entirely at ease within your hotel structure or hotel system which does not quite fit with what they expect I am not sure what changes are, I am not an expert, but I think there is the feeling of what makes people feel at home at hotels.

And three get the low cost flight from London

Being intrigued by assessment of comfort standards of some Crimean hotels, we decided to ask Mr. Brian Hanrahan one more question about them.

Alexey Soloviev: Did our hotels disappoint you?

Brian Hanrahan: They did not disappoint me but I could feel that they were not hotels that average visitor from London or from Western Europe would feel entirely comfortable. No lift. In the hotels there are no maps of the city sometimes before you buy the big one you need to have just a single piece of paper which tells you where you are. Lights in the hotels are sometimes in wrong place you cannot tell which light turns what on. I have been to the hotels round the world and it is not the thing which worries me, but as for package tourist, who comes in and you hit the light and it does not come on. Or you go to bed and want to turn lights off, and there are four different lights round the room and you have to get up to switch them off. And the bathroom light is not somewhere at the entrance to the bathroom, you have to find it. It is entirely the matter of tourist feeling comfortable.

We thanked Mr. Brian Hanrahan for the interview and thought that his final remark on the hotels can be a good prompt to those, who are planning to reconstruct and refurbish Soviet style hotels and sanatoria to match European standards. Here he was talking about two Soviet period hotels of Stalin style architecture in Sevastopol and in Simferopol, which were reconstructed several years ago. What we heard about them shows once again modern tourism allows no "trifles"