Pizza Hut advert featuring ex Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

Pizza Hut advert featuring ex Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
Russian Forgotten advert Gorbachev made for Pizza Hut
A remarkable Pizza Hut advert filmed in 1997 which featured Mikhail Gorbachev has resurfaced following the death of the former leader of the USSR yesterday aged 91.Show more

Gorbachev was an incredibly liberal and amiable politician whose policies of 'glasnost' (openness) and 'perestroika' (rebuilding) helped bring about an end to the Cold War and introduce sorely needed democratic and economic reform in Russia.
But such radical changes unleashed forces beyond his control, and battles between hardliners intent on preserving centralised power and separatists set on dismantling it hastened the total collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
Six years later, Gorbachev filmed an advert for the American pizza maker - one of many Western companies that were able to enter Russia in the years following the breakup of the USSR, largely thanks to the former leader's policies.

The end result was used in schools and universities the world over to illustrate the dramatic economic shifts following the collapse of the Soviet Union and showed how Gorbachev was willing to open Russia up to the world, despite his enduringly communist ideals.