Gorbachev returns to Russia post-surgery

    Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev returned to Russia on Saturday, more than two weeks after undergoing surgery in Germany for a blocked artery in the neck, his aide said.
     Gorbachev, 75, had surgery on his carotid artery at a clinic in Munich on Nov. 21 after going to a Moscow hospital days earlier feeling tired and unwell, said his aide, Vladimir Polyakov.
     Polyakov said at the time the former leader had been working too hard and traveling often.
     The Interfax news agency quoted Gorbachev as saying he felt "quite well" and planned to visit a bathhouse soon if doctors permitted, adding he would be careful. He sad he would travel and work less than he has in the past, the agency reported.
     Gorbachev radically changed the Soviet Union with his liberal glasnost and perestroika reforms in the late 1980s, helping to unleash forces that pulled the country apart and led to his resignation in December 1991 as president of a nation that essentially had ceased to exist.
     Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, he maintains an active public life running the Gorbachev Foundation — an organization devoted to international issues including globalization, security, weapons of mass destruction, environmental and natural resources and poverty.

Associated Press, 09.12.2006