Dear CCI Friends,
The following foto-journal from Mike Metz covers our meeting with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Spent two hours with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the USSR today, he’s 88 and showing it, but still very sharp. That’s Sharon Tennison, our trip leader on the right, his interpreter on the left.
Gorbachev told stories of negotiations with Reagan, apparently Ronnie started every session with a lecture on the righteousness of America, until Gorbachev asked him to knock it off—“Mr. President you are not a teacher and I am not your student.” The man is justifiably proud of his successes in nuclear disarmament, suggesting that 85% of the world’s nuclear arms at the time were destroyed as a result. He told of Reagan’s fascination with SDI, the Star Wars program, which of course went nowhere. Gorbachev is still passionate on the topic of nuclear arms, reminding us that current tensions between our countries could well finish off the planet.
Last night we did a “Walking Tour of Communist Moscow,” with an articulate young Russian. The irony was everywhere. The photo below is the infamous Lubyanka, where tens of thousands were interrogated, tortured, and sent to the gulags. Note the hot black Audi in the foreground.
And the former Karl Marx University, now an archive, a black BMW setting it off nicely.
And the site of the last Moscow battle of the Bolsheviks and the Whites, now a Rolex store.
Tomorrow we’re off to the Crimea.
Michael Metz
Citizen Diplomat
September, 2018