Last year I had sent Irina a most beautiful statue of an angel blowing a trumpet. Over the angel’s heart I had put her mother’s picture. Irina took me to one corner of her office and showed me the angel, which was kept in this special corner. I said, “This is the one I gave you!”
Irina said, “Yes!” Then she showed me five more things that I had given the Gorbachev family over the years. She was telling me, “You gave this glass piece a few years ago. You gave all this.” She said that she keeps those things in her main office permanently.
Then we sat down. Irina was at her desk, and I sat in front of her desk, facing her. I saw on her desk the vase that I gave her last year. On one side of the vase is a photograph of Raisa Maximovna, and on the other side is a photograph of President Gorbachev. It looks so beautiful. She said, “I keep it here, right in front of me. Your gifts are always here. And there are a few personal things from you that we keep at home.”
We meditated a little in silence, and Irina was looking at me intently. Afterwards we had a long talk, and I highly appreciated and admired her work.
At 3:00 there was supposed to be a conference. The subject matter was, “Perestroika: is it of the future or of the past?” Just before it was supposed to start, a message came to Irina from the President: “I will be late. You open the conference. Please take Sri Chinmoy with you.”
President Gorbachev's daughter read the message out to me, and together we went to the meeting.From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy in Russia, Agni Press, 2001
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