September 20, 1999
Web posted at: 4:53 p.m. EDT (2053 GMT)

In this story: Met future husband ballroom dancing Some called her the 'Czarina' 'The truest and most devoted friend' RELATED STORIES, SITES

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Raisa Gorbachev, who brought flair and controversy to the Kremlin as the first lady to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, died of leukemia on Monday in a German hospital. She was 67.

Gorbachev, the Soviet leader from 1985-91, was by his wife's side when she finally lost a long battle with a rare form of the blood cancer, according to his spokesman in the northwestern city of Muenster, Germany.

A grim-looking Gorbachev declined to speak to reporters as he emerged from a hotel where he and daughter Irina had been staying throughout the illness of Mrs. Gorbachev, who had been hospitalized since late July in Muenster.

Mrs. Gorbachev's body will be flown to the Russian capital for burial, said a spokesman for the Gorbachev Foundation, the couple's think tank in Moscow.

She had undergone chemotherapy in Germany for several weeks and her sister had flown in from Russia a month ago to donate bone marrow. But while preparing for the transplant, Mrs. Gorbachev's condition worsened rapidly.

Raisa Maximovna Titorenko met her future husband at a ballroom dancing class in college. The two were married in September 1953, and moved to Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol, in southern Russia, in 1955.

As Gorbachev climbed the Communist hierarchy in the Russian provinces, his wife earned a doctorate in sociology, taught school and had a daughter.

When he became the country's leader, she broke decades of Soviet custom by appearing as a Western-style first lady with her husband. She was the first Kremlin wife to travel with her husband, wear designer clothes and shop with a credit card.

"Not everyone liked it," said Pavel Palashenko, Gorbachev's former translator. "But she never, I think, flinched, and Gorbachev never flinched from this policy -- and that policy was that she is the first lady."

The daughter of a Siberian railway worker, her visibility shocked a country long used to keeping Politburo wives under wraps. Many Russians disliked Mrs. Gorbachev, who said last December she understood why some called her the "Czarina."

"I was the first wife of a head of the Soviet government to appear on TV. And that's obviously the fate of anyone who goes first," she said.

Gorbachev conceded in his memoirs that even his mother had never liked his wife. But he never left any doubt that Raisa -- his "Raya" -- was the love of his life, his soul mate and partner in both family life and politics.

"We were bound first of all by our marriage, but also by our common views on life," Gorbachev wrote. "We both preached the principle of equality. We shared our common cares and helped each other always and in everything."

Together they organized a foundation and clinic for children with leukemia, years before Mrs. Gorbachev was diagnosed with the disease.

She remained largely out of the public eye in the 1990s. After being held captive during a failed coup attempt in 1991, she suffered what has been described as either a stroke or a nervous breakdown. She returned to her husband's side during his disastrous run for Russia's presidency in 1996.

After Gorbachev had lost his position in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, she conceded that their lives had become "a bit more gloomy." In 1996, she told a Russian newspaper that she had begun selling off her wardrobe of evening dresses because she no longer needed them.

In a statement issued Monday, Russian President Boris Yeltsin -- who succeeded Gorbachev in the Kremlin when the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of 1991 -- said he was "pained" to hear of Mrs. Gorbachev's death.

"You have lost the truest and most devoted friend. The most outstanding person, the most wonderful woman, a loving wife and mother has passed away," Yeltsin said.

"Today, millions of Russians and citizens of other countries who knew and respected your spouse are experiencing the sadness of this loss," he added.

Yeltsin will send an aircraft to Muenster on Tuesday to bring the former first lady home, according to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency. The Gorbachev Foundation spokesman could not confirm reports that she would be interred at the exclusive Novodevichy cemetery.

In addition to her husband and daughter, Raisa Gorbachev is survived by two granddaughters.

Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty, Correspondent Steve Harrigan, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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