Gorby and Goofy

Rudy Perpich, a dentist from Hibbing, was Governor of Minnesota when, on this day in 1990, he hosted a visit from Mikhail Gorbachev, then Premier (or president or czar) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.   I've looked at several news stories of that event and I'm still not quite sure why Gorby decided to come to Minnesota after his summit meeting with President George Bush. Perpich was positively aglow -- he loved the spotlight and he took the opportunity to rub it in a little bit by not inviting Minnesota's senators (Boschwitz and Durenberger were Republicans and Perpich was very assuredly not.)

Gorbachev met with a bunch of business leaders at Control Data headquarters.  Control Data doesn't exist any more.  For that mater, neither does the USSR.  Just 18 months after the beaming Premier (or president or tzar) left Minnesota, he resigned and the USSR fell apart at the seams.

One article said that, a month before the visit, Gorbachev's advance team came to the Twin Cities and when they left, they loaded a cargo plane with jeans and bicycles -- things that were very rare and valuable in Moscow at the time.  I wonder who's wearing those Levis and riding around on vintage Schwinns.

Some years later, Paul McArtney played a gig in Red Square: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq1KbYUp8Ac