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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
World
Mansur Mirovalev

‘It took me decades to realise what Gorbachev gave me’

Gorby Mikhail Gorbachev Vladimir Lenin Josef Stalin Mansur Mirovalev Islam Karimov USSR
Mansur Mirovalev, pictured in Moscow, on September 29, 2010, meeting Mikhail Gorbachev [Courtesy of Mansur Mirovalev]

Kyiv, Ukraine – Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms began when I was 10, and I saw their course as part of my teenage transformations.

What made me an adult killed the USSR, the country I was born in and used to be proud of. I hated Gorbachev for that – because he destroyed my home and hopes, annulled my parents’ careers and life’s savings.

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