Press Release, 3.09.2022

Full video of the conference

The online conference Marathon in Memory of Mikhail Gorbachev, organised by the Yabloko party, lasted eight hours. The speeches of the participants were broadcast on the Yabloko YouTube channel.

Politicians, statesmen and public figures, writers, journalists and human rights activists from Russia, the USA, Mexico and Italy took part in the marathon.

Lech Walesa, the President of Poland in 1990-1995 and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, spoke at the marathon. He spoke about the desire of Mikhail Gorbachev to keep as many Soviet republics as possible in accord with Russia, provided that world peace was maintained, and that the President of the USSR found support in this from the international community.

The Russian participants of the conference included Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky, human rights activists Konstantin Simonov, Svetlana Gannushkina, Yan Rachinsky and Valery Borshchev, writers Alla Gerber and Andrei Krasilnikov, artist Dmitry Shagin, journalists Vladimir Mukusev, Victoria Ivleva and Nadezhda Azhgikhina, political scientist Emil Pain and others.

“Today’s Marathon is like a reflection of hope for a better, free and peaceful future. It was a meeting of people inspired by their belief that our country can be free and peaceful. It was very important that people from different countries of the world spoke [at the conference], and in each speech there were words about friendship and good-neighborly relations with our country,” Nikolai Rybakov, Сhairman of Yabloko and anchor of the conference, said.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR, died at the age of 91 on 30 August. On 3 September, he was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.