For a majority of Russians, Gorbachev's term "was the beginning of the end of prestige, of Russia's international role, of the fall of the USSR and everything that came afterwards," says Tatyana Kastueva-Jean, director of the Russia/NIS (Newly Independent States) Centre at the French Institute of International Relations. Kastueva-Jean says some 60 percent of Russians held negative view of the now-deceased last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES