"The undead gave way to life"

The New Times asked the people who made a career in New Russia the question: “How did Mikhail Gorbachev change your life personally?”, And Moscow students who have no life experience in the Soviet Union, those for whom the eighties of the twentieth century - the head of the history textbook, asked: “What do you think about Mikhail Gorbachev?”

Mikhail Gorbachev argues with the delegates of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, Moscow, June 6, 1989

Oleg Vyugin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the MDM Bank, ex-head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets:

Gorbachev changed my life in a fundamentally. In the Soviet Union, it was far from going far from the party line. When I studied and lived in the Soviet Union, I did not even think that this is possible - that I could be the head of the federal service or the first deputy head of the Central Bank.

Mikhail Efremov, actor:

He changed not only my life. But mine is for the better. It became easier to breathe. I remember Brezhnev, and Andropov, and Chernenko. True, I was in the army when they were dying. Mikhail Sergeyevich was a completely different person. He was very different from those who were before - he spoke without a piece of paper. They were friends with my father, so I saw him after he ceased to be the president of the Soviet Union. It is unlikely that our current rulers will retire and live with two guards, or even without protection. He (Gorbachev) just opened his eyes. Many books have appeared, many films. Repentance never happened, but at least the film was watched (this refers to the film “Repentance” of Tengiz Abuladze. - NT ).

Vitaly Milonov, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, United Russia:

Gorbachev for me is the face of perestroika. Inside the country, all connections were changed, ideology - everything! Our country did not remember more large -scale changes. During Gorbachev, I studied at school and graduated from it when Gorbachev finished being the leader of our country. Gorbachev is associated with a coupon system. I remember how we lived in the Soviet Union - very good. Mikhail Sergeyevich made so that those people who lived deservedly well cease to live like that. And all the shit, sorry, unhinderedly piled up with his unwashed legs, his sneakers on white tables and began to be pleased. Perestroika became a chance for cattle, for scum, for killers, for rapists and turned out to be a destroyed dream for the rest of the Russians who saw and believed in perestroika, and as a result of everyone they deceived and threw, left without a country, without reforms, without everything.

Leonid Parfenov, journalist and TV presenter:

Completely changed. Socialism ended with Gorbachev and the second Russian capitalism began, that is, undead replaced with life. Although Mikhail Sergeyevich himself, perhaps, did not foresee it, he moved along the peasant hunch in it.

General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev at a meeting with students of Tallinn Technical University , Tallinn, Estonia, USSR, October 17, 1986

German Sterligov, Russian ex-multimillionaire, rural householder:

I once came to Gorbachev for a birthday on Kosygin Street in jeans and a cowboy checkered shirt, and there everyone was in suits and evening dresses, and I felt like a blank. It was very useful for me. From now on, I was never lazy to observe the dress code.

There was still a case. At one of the public events, Vice Prime Minister Gorbachev, Silaev, solemnly invited me to the television cameras to head the created state committee in the status of the ministry, it seemed that in entrepreneurship or something like that. I was 24 years old, and I immediately refused this proposal, citing "strong employment." I think that this answer has greatly changed my life.

Natalia Timakova, press secretary of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation:

When I was in the first grade, Leonid Brezhnev died, in the second - Yuri Andropov, in the third - Konstantin Chernenko. I have formed a stable idea that this is so specially. They come for a year - and die. And by the fourth class, even I, a ten-year-old girl, felt some kind of farce and unnaturalness of what was happening in the country. And then Gorbachev came. He looked friendly, open, and in his communication with people there was a lot of human. And even in the fact that Raisa Maksimovna was always nearby. Mikhail Gorbachev changed my country. And I had a chance to become a free person. In Russia, such a chance rarely falls out.

“I have a chance to become a free person. In Russia, such a chance rarely falls out "

Alexandra Baeva, 19 years old, Faculty of History of Moscow State University:

There are reasons to love and hate him. Not personally with me, but with the Russian people. I, and not me, believe that the Soviet Union could not fall apart without Gorbachev’s help. There was a global saw in which he participated. And a person devoted to his country will not be applauding all London on his birthday for 15 minutes. The West will not stand for 15 minutes to applaud a person who did not make a large and good thing for the West, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union. I think it was a global plan, and he fulfilled it.

Maria Vakhrusheva, 20 years old, philological faculty of the Institute of the Russian Language named after A.S. Pushkin:

There was a double opinion about him from the school, because someone said “oh, this is a terrible person who ruined everything”, and some believe that he did good to the country. So I, most likely, had a neutral opinion about him, and I accept both points of view, because everywhere there is a share of truth.

Nikolai Voroshilov, 19 years old, journalism program, media department of the Higher School

I always had a double attitude to Gorbachev. I understood that he was the same general secretary, and then the president, like the rest, like Brezhnev, Khrushchev and ending with Stalin. But on the other hand, I understood, for some of his internal reasons, he did not hold the alliance when the Baltic stern announced the sovereignty. I did not live with him, probably, thank God. Nevertheless, of course, I understand that this is a completely outstanding personality. I personally are very impressed by the fact that he now has a fund, he is engaged in some kind of educational and charitable projects. Gorbachev is respected as a person who understands that the Superior is terrible, it is a terrible abomination, it is old age, it is rot and there are completely different things - development and progress.

Ksenia Deribin, 20 years old, Faculty of World Economy NIU HSE:

It seems to me that he is a good enough peasant. He has the right thought about the development of the economy, realistic. That is, they are acceptable under our economy both in the past and in the present, they are realized, and not some sky-high ones. The ideas were good, but the internal political system was poorly thought out.

Before the start of perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev meets Muscovites, April 17, 1985

Ekaterina, 20 years old, Department of Applied Mathematics NIU HSE:

Oh Lord, I don’t think anything about him, because I don’t know anything about him. It seems to me that no one really knows anything, they just know that he was like that, and that’s all.

Elizabeth (did not indicate the age), the faculty of international journalism MGIMO:

I don't think anything about him, because I know very badly. For me, everything that was after Stalin was some kind of incomprehensible period before Putin's coming. It seems to me that everyone who studies with me also knows - everyone is before the Great Patriotic War, and then already bad. There are some separate facts-a thaw, the Berlin wall fell apart, the USSR fell apart, and that’s it. Well, Gorbachev seems to have ruined the country. Or maybe not him.

Ekaterina Kochkina, 21 years old, Faculty of Law of the Higher School of Law:

Not quite a successful politician, so to speak, from the point of view of the development of the Soviet Union and already Russia. The first association is its appearance. The second is that he left for England. I cannot give any specific historical opinion.

“Everything that was after Stalin was some kind of incomprehensible period before Putin's coming.”

Dmitry Mukhin, 18 years old, Department of Computer Engineering NIU HSE:

I believe that this is a person who was trying to reform the Soviet Union in a political and economic plan. Introduce a market economy, democratize the country. But such a system was simply built that it was not possible to implement it. I do not think that this is a bad person, that there, as some say, he ruined the Soviet Union. Well, the Soviet Union itself would fall apart. Gorbachev simply became a man in whom this happened.

Mikhail Nikulin, 21 years old, Faculty of Law of the Higher School of Law:

He is a contradictory figure. He finally broke out that system. But the Soviet Union in its conservative state could not continue to exist. And Gorbachev did what he had to do. And what bad he did is some of his methods. He had punctures in foreign and domestic politics. I can only evaluate it from history textbooks, but the fact that he, in fact, made it possible to transition from the totalitarian communist system to a more liberal, even democratic one, of course, is good. And how he did it - not all his methods are correct and good.

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Photo: Valery Khristoforov/TASS photo chronicle, East News, TASS/AFP