Soon afterwards he was elected to the praesidium of his one-time tormentor, the Composers' Union, and the old hostility of Soviet officialdom towards him gradually crumbled during the Gorbachev era of perestroika.

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Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Soviet-era President Mikhail Gorbachev and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair are all expected to attend, he added.

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Putin is trading in his Mercedes Benz for a Russian-made Zil limousine, which was once a symbol of Soviet era power and used by Soviet leaders Nikita Krushchev, Leonid Breznev and Mikhail Gorbachev.

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