Gorbachev’s Wife Seriously Ill

Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, is seriously ill in a German hospital, a spokesman for the private Gorbachev Foundation said. Raisa Gorbachev, 67, is being treated in Muenster, Germany, for a “serious blood disease,” spokesman Vladimir Polyakov said. He declined to elaborate about the nature of the disease or Gorbachev’s prognosis. Gorbachev has been in the hospital since July 25. The former philosophy instructor was the first wife of a Soviet leader to have a public life, basking in the limelight at home and abroad. Russians widely resented her perceived flamboyance, and she remains, along with her husband, one of the most unpopular figures in the former Soviet Union.