Hugh Grant forks out for dinner with Gorby

29 November, 2008, 09:19

How much would you pay to have dinner with the man responsible for Perestroika? The starting price is quarter of a million pounds – that is the sum British actor Hugh Grant has spent to break bread with the last leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The dinner was auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for the Raisa Gorbachev charity.

The ‘Dine with the President’ supper was enjoyed by Grant and a businessman who remains anonymous. The latter also paid a quarter of million, bringing the total raised by the auction to 500,000 pounds

The money raised will be used to buy scanning equipment at a cancer treatment centre.

Hugh Grant visited the centre during his visit to Moscow, speaking to patients and staff.

The charity is named after Gorbachev's wife Raisa who died of leukaemia in 1999.