Mikhail Gorrabostchev RIP

Mikhail Gorrabostchev RIP

It was the end of an era the other day, with the death of splotchy-headed baldy cove Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union. Well regarded internationally for introducing reforms such as glasnost and perestroika, and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in bringing the cold war to an end, Gorbachev was less popular with old communists and ultranationalists at home, who never ceased to blame him for the breakup of the USSR and Russia’s diminished standing in the world.

Sadly Gorbachev’s death eclipsed the demise the same day of his second cousin from Point, whose career followed a very similar trajectory.  Mikhail Gorrabostchev, former First Secretary of the Communist Party of the UUSSR (Union of Ui Soviet Socialist Rubha-publics), passed away aged 91 at almost exactly the same instant as his Russian relative.

Mikhail Gorrabostchev was born in Stavroportvoller in 1931, when all of Point was atremble at what its capricious dictator Josef Starinn might do next. (See our 2017 article about the Rubhach Revolution). A loyal member of the Point Communist Party, Gorbachev kept his head down and worked his way up through the ranks, dodging the purges, gulags, firing squads, school Christmas Concerts and church breakaways that characterised Starinn’s reign of terror. 

When Nikita Krùisgean took power in 1953, Gorrabostchev was appointed political  commissar of a large communal hen farm in Sheshader, with special responsibility for enforcing orthodoxy in the interpretation of Marxist theory among the goc-gaaacs. 

In the Summer he would also be issued with a can of midgie spray and sent out with orders to persecute the cuileags.

Gorrabostchev’s work on the hen farm was a stepping stone to greater advancement in the Party, and it wasn’t long before he was appointed to the Point Pulletburo.

As one of the Pulletburo’s youngest members, Gorrabostchev began to find himself frustrated by the dogmatic and hidebound attitudes among some of his older colleagues. 

Gorrobostchev managed to make sure he was in the right place at the right time, and took over after the expiry in rapid succession of previous leaders Yuri Androportvoller and Konstantin Chickenheadnenko, both elderly apparatchiks of the Central Grazings Committee chosen to lead Point after the death of Leonid Flesherinev.

Once in power, Gorrobostchev was able to introduce a more outward looking approach to selling hens and eggs. His Glasbost and Per-rubha-stroika approach found favour in the west and gave the Rubhachs a tantilising glimpse of the free market. 

One of the defining moments that led to the collapse of Co-chomannunism  was the  Cherknockbyl peat power plant disaster in 1986.  Years of under investment in the ancient plant, the use of cheap sausage peat and stifling bureaucracy plagued the engineers, who knew only too well it was an accident waiting to happen. In April 1986, a routine safety check of the box of matches used to light the boiler led to a cracked valve.  A cloud of peat smoke escaped from the power plant and drifted across much of Swordale and Aignis, resulting in the ruination of several pairs of church bloomers that were hanging from various washing lines in the vicinity. 

At first, the officials refused to admit that Cherknockbyl had burst a valve and pretended that everything was ok. It was only when some big blones from Sandwick turned up demanding compensation for their washing and threatening to go to the West Highland Free Press, that the truth came out.

Gorrobostchev could see the writing on the wall for the UUSSR, but being the consummate politician, he could also see opportunities for reform throughout Point. He took a very light approach with the villages seeking greater autonomy, and towards the end of 1989, as one by one, villages in Point started to defy the Central Pulletburo,  he did nothing to stop it. Very soon these villages were selling eggs in Perceval Square on a Saturday morning.

Gorrobostchev was awarded the ‘Bayble Peat’s Prize’ at the Point Show in 1990 for his interesting peat sculpture of Josef Stalin eating a marag. 

Following the tradition for funerals of former Point Communist leaders, Gorrabostchev was preserved by kippering then lay in state in the Great Hall of the Upper Bayble Mission House while a steady line of citizens filed past to pay their respects. This presented some logistical difficulties; following the breakup of the UUSSR, the Mission House had been sold and converted for domestic use, and Gorrabostchev’s lying in state had to take place on the worktop of the current resident’s bijoux open plan kitchen/diner.

Current Point leader Vladimir Spùtin never bothered to turn up for the funeral, as he was too busy trying to annex Branahuie.