A visit to the [now former] Soviet Union I made as part of a school party in 1987 took place at the height of Glasnost and Perestroika. Gorbachev was in command and communism was re-inventing itself. Hope was in the air. As yet, the war in Afghanistan had not created Al Qaeda, and Global warming was a long way from cold winters in Britain [or Moscow]. However, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher still worked to undermine the evil empire, and ultimately they succeeded.

Everything in Russia was swept away, the drunken opportunist Boris Yelstin stopped a tank in its tracks, and the rest is history.

The suicide bomber invented a new sense of secuirity. Former soviet torturers became billionaires and owned football clubs. Gas supplies were held to ransome, and Europe prepared to shiver.

But the Cold War, at least, was over.