Raisa and Mikhail Gorbachev: love without politics

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The couple Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev have been in full view of the whole world for many years. Hand in hand they walked through life, were together in poverty and wealth, decided human destinies and history. And few thought that behind the publicity shield were the souls of two loving people.

Modest student wedding

Did the young beauty, Komsomol member and student Raya Titarenko think that meeting with a modest student Misha Gorbachev would allow her in the future to become one of the most influential women in the world? A twenty-year-old student was told about her by friends. The further course of events can be conveyed in words: I came, I saw, I fell in love. But Raisa herself was not at that moment inclined to a new novel. The fact is that she was very worried about breaking up with her fiancé, the son of influential people. Mikhail Gorbachev starved a young student to death.

For the first six months he was simply present in the life of a third-year student, for another half a tender romance lasted. Mikhail courted, supported his beloved in every possible way. He made a sudden proposal while walking along the bridge, right at the entrance to the Sokolniki registry office. I just offered to come in, and she agreed. They immediately chose the date - September 25, 1953, and began to prepare for the wedding. Students are not rich people, but cheerful and savvy people. Mikhail Gorbachev worked on a combine in the summer so that there was something to spend the wedding with.

The bride was ordered a wedding dress made of snow-white chiffon from a dressmaker. The bride's shoes were lent by a girlfriend, but there were no rings at all. He put her wedding ring only a few years after the painting. Only the best friends came to the wedding ceremony. And the parents of Raya and Misha were presented with a fact a few days before the appointed date. They got married in September, and the first wedding night happened in early October, when the students who lived in the hostel left for work in a sponsored collective farm. But the wedding celebrations did not end there, in November the newlyweds played a student wedding. Everything went modestly, but cheerfully in a diet canteen not far from the hostel. The steamed cutlets were garnished with potatoes and vinaigrette, and the wedding drink was Stolichnaya vodka.

The young wife did not know how to cook at all, but she danced beautifully with her husband. After graduation, the couple left for the Stavropol Territory, where Mikhail Gorbachev's career began. Family life almost turned into a drama, saving Raisa's life, they lost a child. Mikhail took his beloved wife to the south, the doctors recommended a change in climate. Later, a daughter, Irina, was born. After the birth of their daughter, the couple received two rooms in a communal apartment. It was only in 1970 that the Gorbachev couple received their own housing.

Love in the background of a career

The career of Mikhail Gorbachev went uphill by leaps and bounds. In November 1978, the Gorbachevs moved to Moscow. Not having their own homes in the capital, they temporarily equip a family nest on the former state dacha Ordzhonikidze. After a couple of years, the couple received an apartment, and later they were given a dacha. And then everything changed dramatically in the family. After the death of the last "Kremlin elder" Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. But bad luck, Raisa Maksimovna did not become the "exemplary Soviet wife" of the general secretary. She did not remain quietly to stand aside, observing the success of her husband, but was his right hand, an adviser in political matters.

Soviet society was somewhat shocked by such liberties. Even Nadezhda Krupskaya, who stood at the origins of the USSR, did not allow herself to do this. The first people of the vast country continued to live as loving spouses, but already under the gun cameras. Together they traveled around the world, deciding destinies and making politics. She was with him both a secretary and an interpreter (Raisa Maksimovna spoke English well). And yet they really loved each other.

Could Gorbachev have taken such a high post and forever inscribed his name in world history without the support of his beloved wife? It was she, the daughter of a housewife who did not know how to hold a frying pan and a broom in her hands until she was married, who had to bear on her shoulders the burden of a difficult Soviet life and at the same time be a moral support for her husband, who was moving up the career ladder. It was she who was his guardian angel at the peak of his political career. Endowed with special talents, Raisa Maksimovna actively intervened in her domestic and international career, but at the same time remained an elegant woman who attracted attention.

After the resignation of Mikhail Sergeevich, the couple lived together in the country. They lived together for over forty-five years. There were only a few days left until the next anniversary. But Raisa Maksimovna did not live, she died in the clinic from leukemia. They say that after the terrible news Gorbachev did not leave his hotel room for several days. He simply could not accept the death of his beloved woman.

Many years later. Now the former leader of the USSR is surrounded by a large family: a daughter, granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. But Mikhail Sergeevich says that with the departure of his beloved wife he lost part of his soul, and sometimes in a dream he hears her voice in the telephone receiver.

Mikhail Sergeevich is often seen at the Novodevichy cemetery, where he visits the most precious thing in a person's life. Gorbachev personally puts things in order at the grave.

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