“Mikhail Gorbachev - Life and Reforms” Permanent Exhibit Opens at the Gorbachev Foundation

An opening ceremony of the permanent exhibit, “Mikhail Gorbachev - Life and Reforms,” celebrating the 20th anniversary since the start of the process of Perestroika, took place at the Gorbachev Foundation on March 11, 2005. The exhibit items are housed in two halls on the first floor of the building. Among them are documents from the Gorbachevs family archives and the archives of the Gorbachev Foundation, original photographs, newspaper clippings, personal belongings of the first and only President of the Soviet Union, etc.
Mikhail Gorbachev himself saw the exhibit for the first time at the opening ceremony. “Each item means much more to me than to any other person: I see many things behind them,” he said.
Welcoming the guests who came to the Gorbachev Foundation, Irina Virganskaya, Vice-President of the Gorbachev Foundation, emphasized, “For us it is important that the exhibit we are opening today represents a story told from the first person. Of course, there will be other exhibits, whose authors will offer their own vision of Perestroika, but we have the only display that gives the chance to tell everything himself to the person who was the architect of this Perestroika. This is the story Mikhail Sergeyevich is telling about the times and himself.”
The people who were involved in the project would like to see it attended by as many schoolchildren and college students as possible – the youth has the right to know the history of their own country not only as told by those who are writing about it. The should also hear the voice of those who were making it.