Just as Americans have political disagreements at the dinner table, it seems that so do Russians. Maybe Russians can’t agree whether Mikhail Gorbachev was good for Russia or not.
For one thing, Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union. Russia was still large after that, at least as land mass goes, but it was no longer a superpower. Soviet-style socialism had failed, and supposedly this proved that socialism in any form is destined to fail.
There was to be practically no pension for Gorbachev. The 4,000 rubles each a month allotted him and other former Soviet leaders weren’t adjusted for the runaway inflation, and by 1994, they exchanged to a measly $2, according to Paul Musgrave writing for Foreign Policy.
And so, the former leader of a former superpower was reduced to looking for commercial endorsement opportunities, like a cocaine-addicted washed up sitcom star shilling for DirecTV.
Pizza Hut came calling, and after some hesitation, Gorbachev agreed. Here’s the ad:
I’m guessing the little girl is Gorbachev’s daughter or granddaughter (indeed she’s his granddaughter Anastasia Virganskaya). Musgrave recaps the ad thus:
Gorbachev isn’t actually the star of the commercial. He doesn’t even speak. He’s a bystander to the commercial’s central drama, a fight over Gorbachev’s legacy between a fiery, pro-reform young man and a dour, anti-Gorbachev middle-aged man—possibly father and son. The two exchange charges and defenses of Gorbachev’s record—“Because of him, we have economic confusion!” “Because of him, we have opportunity!” “Complete chaos!” “Hope!”—before an older woman settles the argument: “Because of him, we have many things … like Pizza Hut!”
Then everyone joins in chanting “Hail Gorbachev!”
Indeed Pizza Hut had made inroads into Russia before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The transition wasn’t easy for Pizza Hut, though, since it meant some serious supply chain pain points. Musgrave gives the example that mozzarella from Lithuania had suddenly become a luxury import.
As desperate as Gorbachev’s situation sounded, the now national pariah and international celebrity let the negotiations drag on for months, though this helped increase the potential payout.
Gorbachev’s fee is estimated to have been at least a million in today’s dollars, and the total budget for the ad is said to have been a few million dollars. It was essentially a miniature movie, after all.
The screenplay was originally written in English and then was worked on by three translators. Gorbachev signed off, and the ad was filmed in Moscow over the course of two days, one of which was Thanksgiving 1997.
Then, the next year, the Russian financial system collapsed. The two Pizza Hut locations in Moscow, which had survived the fall of the Soviet Union, reportedly did not survive for too long after the financial crash of August 1998.
And that means that this fictional family [in the ad], like most Russians, probably spent the early 2000s supporting the increasingly hard-line Vladimir Putin, seeing him as “the only person who can take them back to stability and potential for growth,” [Yuval] Weber[, the Bren chair of Russian military and political strategy at the U. S. Marine Corps University’s Krulak Center] said.
The ad has found an “unexpected second life online,” becoming a wildcard for whatever thesis the essayist wishes it to be, Musgrave writes. In my case, I want to draw a parallel to American disgrace Donald Trump, who has also appeared in a Pizza Hut ad.
Unlike Gorbachev, Trump did bite a slice of pizza on camera. Also unlike Gorbachev, Trump won’t fare too well abroad after leaving the White House. In the ad, Trump appears with the first of his three ex-wives (Melania’s pretty much checked out by now).
Some say Trump will bring about the collapse of the United States. Perhaps that would be a better fate than America becoming a Soviet republic under Putin’s control.
We’ve got to ditch Trump, preferably sooner than later. Hold Trump accountable at the ballot box if not at impeachment. And make sure he leaves, dragged off by security guards if need be.
But in the backs of our minds, there should be the question of how will the poor, broke bastard be able to sustain a lifestyle suitable for a former public servant, even if he did such a lousy job of it? Not with his ill-gotten gains from emoluments, those assets should be frozen.
If Putin’s puppet does bring about breakup of the United States, maybe some Russian company will want to use him as a pitchman. A few ideas come to mind.
“No one knows bankruptcy like I do!” Trump says, shilling for a bankruptcy law firm. Though to be fair, he’s never faced personal bankruptcy, despite running several companies into the ground.
Or how about: “Too lazy and too fat to walk a few yards? Just hop on your Yamaha Golf Cart. I was tough on China, you know what I’m talking about, rocket fuel for the economy. What do you mean Yamaha’s not Chinese?”
Maybe not. Maybe fast food delivery would be a better fit. “I was too cheap to buy a good banquet for college athletes. So I got Uber Eats to deliver a bunch of Big Macs to the White House.”