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PERESTROIKA MUSEUM OPENS IN MOSCOW

MOSCOW, March 11 (RIA Novosti) - The opening ceremony of the permanent exposition "Mikhail Gorbachev - Life and Reforms" took place at the Gorbachev foundation in Moscow. It is dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the perestroika period (democratization of Soviet society).

According to Mikhail Gorbachev, the exposition was set up by his daughter Irina Virganskaya. She hopes that many students and schoolchildren will visit the museum. "Those who created history should tell young people about it," she noted.

The exposition occupies two small halls. It features original documents of the 1990s and their copies, photographs, newspaper articles and personal effects of the first and only president of the Soviet Union.

Among the showpieces are Mikhail Gorbachev's party membership card, the certificate of the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee, the work record book (it contains a record of Mr. Gorbachev's dismissal from the post of the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the USSR and election to the post of the USSR President on March 15, 1990), the coat which Mr. Gorbachev wore on arriving from Foros, the pen of Ronald Reagan which he used to sign the first treaty on nuclear disarmament, etc.

Mikhail Gorbachev saw the exposition for the first time at the opening ceremony. It took him more than an hour to examine everything. "Each showpiece means much more to me than to the others. They remind me of many things," he said.

The ex-president says he could be a good guide. "But I need high wages," he said jokingly.