Mikhail Gorbachev 'Offended' by US Journo's Article on Ex-Soviet President's Legacy as Pizza Ad Star

Foreign Policy magazine recently brought a 22-year-old TV commercial featuring the Soviet leader into the spotlight claiming that the only president of the USSR took part in the venture because he needed money to fund the Gorbachev Foundation, an NGO researching the Perestroika era.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has reproached the authors of an article in Foreign Policy magazine that allegedly shed light on the politician's motives behind his appearance in a Pizza Hut TV commercial, which, according to them, was mainly financially driven.

Gorbachev did confirm that he needed money back then and his participation in the ad was a way to raise funds for the Gorbachev Foundation.

However, the ex-Secretary General of the Communist party was utterly perplexed that this episode of his life resurfaced again. He added that this was not a matter of poverty at all and he was not strapped for cash, "especially compared to the majority of the country's population."

"These are strange publications...And the US journalists who wrote about it upset and offended me," Gorbachev concluded.

The commercial in question was shot in 1997 in which the former Soviet leader is seen enjoying a meal in a Pizza Hut restaurant while a group of people sitting nearby are arguing about his contribution to the country with all of them agreeing eventually that he deserves the credit for the very existence of Pizza Hut in Russia.


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