Word: maximov
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gorbachev showed an avid interest in the press. Vladimir Maximov, a writer now living in Paris who worked for a Stavropol Komsomol newspaper in the 1950s, recalls that the young official often visited the paper's offices for a chat. "He would sit down with us in a casual manner," says Maximov. "We would uncork a bottle of wine ((for all his antialcoholism campaigning, Gorbachev still enjoys an occasional drink)) and usually talk politics. Khrushchev's report on the crimes of the Stalinist era had recently appeared. The entire country was still reeling from shock." Maximov and others of Gorbachev...
Gorbachev was not like that at all. He was a quiet and pleasant host with a reputation throughout the district for incorruptibility. Writer Maximov relates a story about a mutual friend, a poet, who asked Gorbachev as a young Komsomol official to help him buy a Volga sedan. Gorbachev obligingly used his influence to speed delivery. The poet promptly sold the car on the black market and returned to ask Gorbachev for help in buying another. Says Maximov: "Gorbachev did not usually lose his temper, but on that occasion he started shouting and threw the poet out of his office...
...dispirited director says that he has been allowed to make only six feature-length films during a 24-year career. Present as Tarkovsky made his emotional announcement were three other famous exiled artists from the Soviet Union: Cellist-Conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, Stage Director Yuri Lyubimov and Writer Vladimir Maximov. All understood Tarkovsky's bitter complaint: "I cannot help but ask why they persecute...