Kremlin in error with Gorbachev

moscow - The Russian government has former President Gorbachev Wednesday congratulations on his 85th birthday. However, the letter from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was addressed to Sergey Gorbachev, not to Mikhail, as the world knows him. Sergej is his second name.

The error came to light after the government dropped the letter online. After discovering the preamble was immediately corrected, the newspaper The Moscow Times. Russians are otherwise accustomed to call each other by their two names. Gorbachev also called Sergei Mikhail for his friends and acquaintances.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the last powerful man in the Soviet Union. He was General Secretary of the Communist Party and the last president of the Soviet Union. His perestroika (political reform) and glasnost (openness) spent the end of the Cold War and in its wake the power of the party and the Soviet Union. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.