Michail Gorbatchov

The visit of the last General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and the first Soviet President happened only two days before 9 May, the day officially declared for the Victory Day over Germany in WW II. The surprise for the guest had to do with the forthcoming celebration, Desislava Dobreva from Cuckoo Band sang for him “The Day of Victory”. This is the song that in a way has accumulated in itself the whole Russian sorrow during the war and together with it the joy of the victory, the triumph over death, hunger and destruction. Hearing that sincere and beautiful performance, Michail Gorbachov was moved to tears. Slavi Trifonov gave him for present a silver box with earth form the Death Valley, near Pleven where thousands of Russian soldiers had shed their blood for the liberation of Bulgaria.

“As you all know I have been here in Bulgaria before. On my former visits, I was also very emotional. Bulgaria is a country that I love. And if you ever hear someone telling you that I have done something to humiliate Bulgaria and the Bulgarians, just don’t believe him. That isn’t true.”

“…You know, we have to understand this world. The whole tragedy lies in the fact that we haven’t understood that we live in a different coordinate system, in a global world, where we are interdependent and that we all have to be sensitive towards what is happening around us. But we behave as if we were still at the beginning of the XXth century.”

“…We will learn to live in peace, to count on ourselves, on our hearts and we will undoubtedly preserve the best quality of our people, that is solidarity and the strive towards justice.”

There was a joke that the best quality of socialism was to cope with problems that weren’t problems in other countries. In the 80ies only a few western politicians understood the big efforts that Gorbatchov made to reform the Soviet system. He just had to solve problems that did not exist anywhere else in the Western countries. Maybe Gorbatchov isn’t a failed reformer, but a very successful one, even a revolutionary. This is because in the former communist countries reform existed mainly as a concept and not a s a real possibility. Communism came and could go only by a revolution. In that sense Gorbatchov’s merit is extraordinary. He made a small step, but it turned out big enough in order to change the world, and in that sense also Bulgaria, forever. It isn’t by chance that the first world of Slavi Trifonov for his guests were very personal, if there weren’t Gorbatchov, maybe the wind of change would have blown towards Bulgaria not from the West, but from the East and it would not be sure what would have happened to Bulgaria…..one thing is for sure, there would be neither this show, nor this television…nor this website…