Eduard Shevardnadze was a Georgian politician and diplomat. He served as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, the de facto leader of Soviet Georgia from 1972 to 1985 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. Shevardnadze was responsible for many key decisions in Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev Era. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he was President of Georgia from 1992 to 2003. He was forced to retire in 2003 as a consequence of the bloodless Rose Revolution. Shevardnadze started his political career in the late 1940s as a leading member of his local Komsomol organisation. He was later appointed its Second Secretary, then its First Secretary. His rise in the Georgian Soviet hierarchy continued until 1961 when he was demoted after he insulted a senior official. After spending two years in obscurity, Shevardnadze returned as a First Secretary of a Tbilisi city district, and was able to charge the Tbilisi First Secretary at the time with corruption. 

January 25th, 1928 in Mamati as ედუარდ შევარდნაძე  /  Died:   Jul 7th, 2014