Mikhail Gorbachev was not only the last leader of the Soviet Union or one of the promoters of the end of the Cold War: he was also, already in the 1990s, the protagonist of an advertisement for the Pizza Hut restaurant chain, which had entered in Russia. shortly before the breakthroughs that fueled Gorbachev’s reforms; and later, in 2007, of a controversial advertisement for Louis Vuitton.
As Mikhail Gorbachev turns 90, it seems only fitting to relive one of his most iconic moments, his starring role in a Pizza Hut ad. pic.twitter.com/l8qsh3iq1R
— Francisco Scarr (@francis_scarr) March 2, 2021
The Pizza Hut ad was released in 1998, but filming took place in November 1997 and it aired in January. The moment was shared again on social networks after Gorbachev’s death on Tuesday night.
In the video, Mikhail Gorbachev appears with his granddaughter, Anastasia Virganskaya, walking through the streets of Moscow, next to Saint Basil’s Cathedral, on a rainy day. Both end up sharing a pizza in a restaurant that existed near the Red Square.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, dies. I was 91 years old
When Gorbachev and his granddaughter enter the restaurant, which is not in Moscow, but in another part of Russia, they find two men and a woman debating the political and economic reforms of the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
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The two men, father and son, exchange heated ideas about these reforms: the father says that the Soviet Union is “in chaos” and that “thanks to him [Gorbachev] we have instability”, while the son defends that “thanks to him we have freedom” and “hope”. That’s when the mother interrupts the exchange of words and shoots: “Thanks to him we have things like Pizza Hut.” At this point, the whole family agrees.
The ad was not published in Russia, but it was circulated internationally. It came nearly eight years after Pizza Hut opened the first restaurant in the Soviet Union in 1990, shortly after McDonald’s also entered the country. The money Gorbachev earned from participating in advertising went to projects for the foundation he headed.
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Almost ten years later, in 2007, Mikhail Gorbachev was photographed by Annie Leibovitz in a Louis Vuitton advertisement in which the Soviet leader appeared with a suitcase from the famous luxury brand inside a limousine that passed near the remains of the wall of Berlin. The controversy arose over the contents of a magazine that can be glimpsed inside the suitcase, whose headline reads in Cyrillic: “The murder of Litvinenko: they wanted to leave the suspect for $7,000.”
Alexander V. Litvinenko was a former KGB spy who had been poisoned with a radioactive substance a few months before the photograph was taken, contextualizes The New York Times. It turns out that, on the verge of death, Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin of the attack. British authorities charged Andrei K. Lugovoi with the crime and asked for his extradition from Russia to the UK, but the Kremlin refused.
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Mikhail Gorbachev x Louis Vuitton #LV #LVMH #ad #Sedan #History pic.twitter.com/QH95zisQlI
— FashionTalkOnly (@FashionTalkOnl1) August 31, 2022
But both Louis Vuitton and the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather denied that there was a subliminal message in the ad. “Our company has absolutely no intention of sending any messages other than personal travel,” they clarified in an email sent to The New York Times at the time.
Source: Observadora
