The one who was the last president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Mikhail Gorbachev, has died this Tuesday in Moscow at the age of 91. The former Soviet leader was the architect of the so-called ‘perestroika’, the opening of the communist bloc to Western economies, and of ‘glasnost’, transparency, which ended up bringing about the end of the Cold War. “This afternoon after a long and serious illness, Mikhail Gorbachev passed away,” sources from the Central Clinical Hospital told the RIA Nóvosti agency.
According to the TASS agency, Gorbachev will be buried in the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, where the remains of prominent figures in the history of this country lie, as well as the tomb of Gorbachev’s wife, Raísa.
The former president had been living away from the media spotlight for years due to health problems. The local media even stated that he spent months hospitalized for a host of conditions, and in 2019 he was admitted for pneumonia.
He assumed the position of general secretary of the Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1985, and in 1988, the head of state, until his fall in 1991.
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