Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Gorbachev touts cultural highway

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on Sunday outlined a business venture with Nevada ties that could build cultural understanding and cooperation between peoples of the world along a Russian highway of great cultural significance.

Speaking through an interpreter at an invitation-only reception at Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Gorbachev outlined the concept of the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation, benefiting a 700-kilometer road connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg on which dozens of Russian cultural icons lived, became educated, wrote, performed and died.

Gorbachev accepted an invitation to be an honorary co-chairman of the foundation, so he won't be involved with the day-to-day operation of the organization. However, his status as a former leader is expected to open doors for foundation executives.

"It's the kind of business that makes it possible for people to become friends," Gorbachev said of the plan to call attention to the route on which cultural luminaries Peter Tchaikovsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Sergei Rachmaninov, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekhov, Igor Stravinsky and Leo Tolstoy lived.

The designation of the highway mirrors U.S. concepts to develop scenic highways that have resulted in economic growth for communities on the route.

Gorbachev's endorsement of the previously reported plan Sunday was made in Southern Nevada because the idea to designate the highway was conceived by Lake Las Vegas executive Tom Tait, the former chief executive of the Nevada Commission on Tourism. Tait also incorporated the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation as a nonprofit institution chartered in Nevada.

Tait, who is president of that foundation, has served as a tourism consultant to European nations and asked former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller to serve as honorary co-chairman of the foundation with Gorbachev.

Miller has escorted Gorbachev during his Southern Nevada visit, which was scheduled to include a press conference this morning and an appearance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, tonight.

Gorbachev was expected to discuss the highway at the lecture, which begins at 7:30 at the Thomas & Mack Center, but he also planned to answer questions about world events and politics.

The former Soviet president and 1990 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize alluded to global events in his 10-minute presentation at the private reception.

"We're living in a very different world, where we do not always understand each other," Gorbachev said. "But I consider myself kind of an optimist."

He said he is hopeful, just as he was in 1985 when he first met with President Ronald Reagan and there had been an absence of U.S.-Soviet talks for six years. He hopes developing commerce along the Russian Heritage Highway will generate more one-on-one contacts between the people of Russia and Western tourists.

Gorbachev got a good look at what American tourism is about, seeing the Las Vegas Strip and dining at Mandalay Bay's Red Square restaurant on Saturday. Because of his late departure from Mexico, where he met with President Vincente Fox, Gorbachev missed out on a planned sightseeing tour of the Havasupai Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon.

He planned to meet with Russian Heritage Highway Foundation board members today and dine with UNLV President Carol Harter prior to his speech.

About 200 people attended Sunday's private reception in which guests contributed $1,500 to mingle with the man widely credited with helping end the Cold War. Gorbachev, in a dark suit and red tie, warmly greeted guests and posed for pictures with several groups.

The guest list included a variety of politicians and business people, including Harter, Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, Assemblyman Richard Perkins, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, former Gov. Robert List and Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce Chairman Tim Cashman.

Actor Kevin Sorbo, who met Gorbachev while filming the television series "Hercules" five years ago in New Zealand, also appeared at the reception.

The clubhouse at Reflection Bay also was decorated with enlarged advertisements of a proposed marketing campaign developed by McMurry Inc., a Phoenix communications consultant to the foundation. An ice sculpture depicting Red Square was placed at one of the bars serving drinks with Russian vodka.

Other guests at the bash: other members of the foundation's board of directors, including William Anderson, president of Westree Marina Management Inc.; Derrick Crandall, president of the American Recreation Coalition and chairman of the Scenic Byways Coalition; Robert Diamond, a 35-year senior management adviser and corporate executive with several companies; Bob Gilbert, a 30-year travel industry executive based in Phoenix; Paul Gregory, founder and president of Focus Lighting Inc., New York; Michael Levett, president and chief executive of the Citizens Development Corps, Washington; Rex Maughan, chairman and president of Forever Living Products International and chairman of the National Park Hospitality Association; Mark McDermott, former director of the Arizona Office of Tourism; Rudolf Stauble, Frankfurt, Germany, vice president of DERTOURS; Dennis Sz efel, group president of hospitality and entertainment for Delaware North Companies, Inc.; and Stephen Williams of McMurry.

It's some of those names and business connections that concern one of the critics of the Russian Heritage Highway Foundation's newly announced project.

Scott Silver of Bend, Ore.-based Wild Wilderness, an environmental advocacy group, said he fears that by designating the Russian Heritage Highway, it could open the region up for commercial exploitation.

"It's an example of how a road is being commodified through branding," Silver said in a telephone interview.

"These special designations were set up by people who think tourists aren't smart enough to know where to drive so they need a green mark on their maps. As a result of the McDonaldization and Wal-Martizination of these highways, people will consume more petroleum products and build more things that are out of place.

"It takes advantage of culture and turns profits over to some corporate interest that is not a part of the indigenous people of the area," Silver said.

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