But when I said I wanted to go to Privolnoye, the village nearby where Gorbachev was born and raised, Nizin stiffened. He would get back to me on that, he said, and disappeared into his office. Within an hour, he told me I could not go. “There is a quarantine in Privolnoye,” he said. “It is forbidden to you.” “What sort of quarantine?” “The cows are diseased, apparently. They do not want any foreigners to come and get sick.” “The cows are against it?” “No,” Nizin said. “Not the cows.”
