I was six years old when the USSR collapsed, and I did not know that the man responsible for the transformation of my hometown in Siberia was Mikhail Gorbachev. I remember sitting on my father’s shoulders at democratic demonstrations and “watching” the crowd that had gathered in the square.

The snippets of conversation that reached me were words of disappointment and indignation.

One name was then on everyone’s lips: Boris Yeltsin. The charismatic former leader of the Russian Communist Party succeeded Mikhail Gorbachev to become the first president of a new, violent, chaotic, impoverished but now democratic Russia.

He brought to Pizza Hut

My first memory of Gorbachev goes back to 1998 and the famous ad for an American pizza chain. In it, Gorbi accompanies his granddaughter to a fast food restaurant on Red Square, and the announcer says: “Thanks to him, we have Pizza Hut!” For some reason, this ad has always irritated me. There was no pizzeria in our provincial Siberian town, and if there was, it would be out of reach for us.

The West saw him as a brilliant and ruthless politician who ended the Cold War without nuclear annihilation, while in Russia he was hated.

A few months after the announcement went on air, the Russian economy collapsed in the first post-Soviet crisis.

When I left to study in the West, I was very impressed by the respect and admiration that Mikhail Gorbachev enjoyed in the West.

The Western image of Gorby was that of a brilliant, ruthless and iconoclastic politician who outmaneuvered hardline party leaders to end the Cold War without nuclear annihilation.

Gorbachev was hated in Russia. The communists blamed him for the collapse of their beloved Union, and the nationalists hated him for surrendering the socialist superpower without a fight.

Those who did not consider him a traitor believed that he was a victim of Western deception.

The sense of betrayal is still alive in Russia today, helping to keep Putin popular and his policies alive.