Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev is celebrating his 80th birthday on Wednesday night with a gala charity concert in the British capital.
Speaking at the opening of the concert at the London Royal Albert Hall, Gorbachev expressed hope that despite of the controversy surrounding his term in office as the last Soviet president he succeeded in “teaching people the ideals of freedom.” “After all those years…I consider myself a happy man,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner told an eclectic crowd of politicians, musicians and artists gathered at the concert.
Gorbachev, the so-called “architect of perestroika and glasnost in Russia,” is still worshiped by some Russians for bringing freedom and democracy to the country, while many others consider him a weak politician, who ruined the Sovie…