Moscow, December 25th, 1991 Quotes

“A popular anecdote described a dog praising perestroika, saying, “My chain is a little longer, the dish is further away, but I can now bark all I want.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

“Pravda and Izvestia translated as “truth” and “news,” and cynics would quip that “in the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

“There he had an epiphany. He concluded that the sole purpose of the Iron Curtain was to prevent Soviet citizens knowing what was on the other side, as it would be too much for them to endure.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

“Gorbachevian, faithfully reflecting our chairman’s inconsistency, timidity, love of half measures and semi-decisions.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

“Was there perhaps a fable or parable that he might tell to a grandchild about what has happened in his country? Koppel asks. “Here is a fable that I learned some years ago,” replies Gorbachev. “A young ruler wanted to rule in a more humane way in his kingdom. And he asked the views of the wise men. And it took ten years to bring twenty volumes of advice. He said, ‘When am I going to read all that? I have to govern my country.’ Ten years later they brought him just ten volumes of advice. He said that is still too much. Five years later he was brought just one volume. But by then twenty-five years have passed and he was on his deathbed. And one of the wise men said, ‘All that is here can be summarized in a simple formula—people are born, people suffer, and people die.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

“Gorbachev, the charming and sophisticated world statesman, can turn the air blue with his profanity. Yeltsin, the hard-drinking, backwoods Siberian, regarded as a buf foon in many international circles, never uses swear words and intensely dislikes those who do.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union

“During a visit to Russia just days before Gorbachev’s resignation, U.S. secretary of state James Baker marvels at how, in all his meetings, one theme is uniform: “the intense desire to satisfy the United States.”
― Conor O'Clery, Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union