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Gorbachev dies. So I remember my childhood years.
One of the most prominent and recognizable figures of the 20th century is gone. I know that most people in Russia criticize him heavily — loathe actually — for destroying the Soviet Union, or not keeping it together. It doesn’t matter how you frame it.
I was just a child growing up in Soviet Moscow. My parents were young and “liberal” so they were always warm to the changes of Gorbachev’s era and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet state. Whatever values and views my parents had — of course I had them. So for me, Gorbachev is about bringing freedom to the people of the Soviet Union, and about building bridges with the West (and bringing down the walls!). But I was just a child, so I don’t want to get too political in this story.
Here’s a story about my Soviet childhood — the Gorbachev era, the last decade of the Soviet Union. I have sketches of a memoir going but I will never finish it, it seems…
I am sentimental about some things. I remember Moscow’s first Mcdonald’s in Pushkinskaya square. It was lovely actually, then and through the years. Now it’s there no longer… Not the end of the world but it’s reflective of how the bridges that were once built were recently all burnt.
