PRIVOLNOYE, Russia — As Moscow paid last appreciates to Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday, homeowners of the far-away town where he invested his youth admired him too.
The Soviet Union’s reformist last leader, who passedaway Tuesday at age 91, grew up in Privolnoye, a town of about 3,000 in southern Russia’s Stavropol area, the kid of peasants. He kept the area’s unique accent upuntil his last days and held onto a village-bred kid’s typical touch.
Although he went away to Moscow, about 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) to the north for university, he returned to the area and started increasing through the ranks of the communist system, ultimately endingupbeing Stavropol’s top authorities as chairman of the local Communist Party committee.