Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Finland's version of the Silicon Valley on Friday and told his hosts he wants to build similar high-tech research facilities in the Soviet Union.
"We have done good work here," Gorbachev said before boarding his plane at the end of a three-day state visit, during which he announced a plan to decommission four older model submarines of the Soviet nuclear-armed fleet in the Baltic Sea.U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney dismissed the gesture as insignificant.
Speaking in Bonn, West Germany, Cheney said the Soviet nuclear capability in the Baltic "frankly wasn't all that great." Experts have described the four Golf II-class Soviet subs as dated and virtually useless.
The proposal also received a lukewarm reaction from neighboring Sweden, which supports a ban on nuclear weapons in Northern Europe.
Gorbachev departed for home Friday after a four-hour tour of Oulu, a remote Baltic Sea city of 100,000 people about 400 miles north of Helsinki.
Thousands of Finns lined the streets to cheer and applaud the Soviet president, who visibly reveled in the attention.