The first and last president of USSR Mikhail Gorbachev passed away in the evening on Tuesday, 30 August, as reported by global news agencies.
«This evening, after a serious and prolonged illness, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev passed away,» Russian news agency RIA Novosti was told by the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital.
Gorbachev passed away at the age of 91.
Gorbachev, who is considered the architect of political and economic reforms in the USSR and who played an instrumental role in ending the Cold War, had suffered from poor health for some time.
Gorbachev was the last secretary general of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party’s Central Committee.
He came to power in 1985. Almost from the very start of his term Gorbachev tried implementing important reforms to make the Soviet system more efficient and democratic. This is where the two main phrases of Gorbachev’s era come from: glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (reconstruction).
In March 1990 Gorbachev was elected the first and last president of the Soviet Union.
He remained in his post until 1991, when the USSR collapsed.
Gorbachev, who was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and founder of Gorbachev Foundation, spent his last years studying the problems in Russian and world history.