Not many leaders made such a mark on a country as the late Gorbachev. Admirers and critics say he ended the Cold War, dissolved the Soviet Union and let millions immigrate to the West.
When Rina Atroshenko’s family was leaving the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s, she thought she would never see her country again.
“He gave us thirty years of peace,” Muratov wrote in Russian. “There will be no more gifts like this.” “Thanks to him, I was able to immigrate to the United States,” he said in Russian. “For that, I’m grateful to him.” 5/3/92–Santa Barbara–Former United States President Ronald Reagan, left and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev don cowboy hats while enjoying a quite moment wives Nancy, left and Raisa Sunday on Reagan’s Rancho del Ceilo, a 688-acre spread in the mountains 30 miles north of Santa Barbara, California. Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, are on a two-week tour of the United States.
She argued that no one from the former Soviet republics benefitted from the collapse of the Soviet system.