President Boris Yeltsin's wife Naina said Saturday she felt nostalgia for the old Soviet Union but that she was hopeful its former member states would grow closer together again.
"I do not rail against the past. Like everybody I feel nostalgia for the Soviet Union as for a large family when we were all together," Naina Yeltsin told Ekho Moskvy radio in an interview."Now I find that my friends live abroad - in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and this of course is sad," she said. "But I look forward with optimism. With time our economic space will be one and we will be together all the same."
Many Russians feel nostalgic for communist times, when streets were safer and prices much lower than today. Many also find it strange that familiar cities like Kiev, Minsk and Riga are now capitals of independent nations.
Only one ex-Soviet republic, Belarus, is currently trying to recreate a much closer relationship with Moscow.
Naina said her husband liked to relax by listening to classical music, especially Beethoven and Vivaldi but said he had little spare time for much else.
She said she had been very distressed by a recent Russian newspaper article alleging that she tried to persuade Yeltsin to retire because of health problems.
"(The claim) is an absolute lie," Naina said.