Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa, was a highly visible part of his international travels; she died in 1999… Mikhail Gorbachev, who was sometimes called “Gorby” in the press, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990… His fiercest political rival from the left was Boris Yeltsin, who became the first president of the new Russian Federation in 1991… Mikhail Gorbachev had a prominent “port wine stain” birthmark on his scalp above his right eye; it was sometimes airbrushed out of official photographs… Some experts suggest that one reason Mikhail Gorbachev was not a popular president was his restriction on the manufacture and distribution of alcohol, especially vodka… In his official online biography, this is given as the explanation for the collapse of the USSR: “Destructive social and ethnic developments, which the emerging Soviet democracy was unable to curb, eventually led to the disintegration of the multinational Union of republics that Gorbachev led.”
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His obituary from Al Jazeera
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Straight-ahead career summary from the Academy of Achievement
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His biographical timeline from the Nobel Prize organization
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Transcript of a 2001 PBS interview
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