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By 1955, his hair was thinning,^[2] and by the late 1960s he was bald,^[3] revealing a distinctive port-wine stain on the top of his head.^[4] Gorbachev reached an adult height of 5 foot 9 inches (1.75 m).^[5] Throughout the 1960s, he struggled against obesity and dieted to control the problem;^[6] Doder and Branson characterized him as "stocky but not fat".^[5] He spoke in a southern Russian accent,^[7] and was known to sing both folk and pop songs.^[8]

Throughout his life, he tried to dress fashionably.^[9] Having an aversion to hard liquor,^[10] he drank sparingly and did not smoke.^[11] He was protective of his private life and avoided inviting people to his home.^[12] Gorbachev cherished his wife,^[13] who in turn was protective of him.^[14] He was an involved parent and grandparent.^[15] He sent his daughter, his only child, to a local school in Stavropol rather than to a school set aside for the children of party elites.^[16] Unlike many of his contemporaries in the Soviet administration, he was not a womanizer and was known for treating women respectfully.^[17]

Gorbachev was baptized Russian Orthodox and when he was growing up, his grandparents had been practising Christians.^[18] In 2008, there was some press speculation that he was a practising Christian after he visited the tomb of St Francis of Assisi, to which he publicly clarified that he was an atheist.^[19] Since studying at university, Gorbachev considered himself an intellectual;^[20] Doder and Branson thought that "his intellectualism was slightly self-conscious",^[21] noting that unlike most Russian intelligentsia, Gorbachev was not closely connected "to the world of science, culture, the arts, or education".^[22] When living in Stavropol, he and his wife collected hundreds of books.^[23] Among his favorite authors were Arthur Miller, Dostoevsky, and Chinghiz Aitmatov, while he also enjoyed reading detective fiction.^[24] He enjoyed going for walks,^[25] having a love of natural environments,^[26] and was also a fan of association football.^[27] He favored small gatherings where the assembled discussed topics like art and philosophy rather than the large, alcohol-fueled parties common among Soviet officials.^[28]

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