Who is Yeltsin. Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin. Biographical note. Retirement and life after it

Boris Yeltsin was the first President of Russia. He was a strong leader, although he made many tactical mistakes in his post. For eight years, this man led a huge country and tried to bring it out of the crisis.

Job in Moscow

In 1968, Boris Yeltsin began his party career. A graduate of the Kirov Ural Polytechnic University became the head of the construction department. Successes in the political service provided him with a quick breakthrough in his career. In 1984, Boris Nikolayevich was already a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1985-1987 served as First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU.

In 1987, at the plenum of the Supreme Council, he criticized the activities of the current leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He was demoted to the position of deputy head of Gosstroy. In 1989, Yeltsin became a People's Deputy of the USSR Supreme Council.

In 1990 he became chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR.

1991 presidential election

On March 17, 1991, a referendum was held in the USSR. On the agenda were the question of introducing the post of president and the item on maintaining the status of the USSR. Purposeful and uncompromising Boris Yeltsin decided to run for the presidency. His competitors in this race were the pro-government candidate Nikolai Ryzhkov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

On June 12, 1991, the first presidential elections were held. B. N. Yeltsin was elected by a majority of votes. The years of the reign of the first leader of Russia were originally supposed to be 5 years. Since the country was in a deep political and economic crisis, no one knew how long the new president would last in real life. A. Rutskoy was elected Vice-President. He and Yeltsin were supported by the Democratic Russia bloc.

On July 10, 1991, Boris Yeltsin took an oath to serve faithfully and truthfully to his people. Mikhail Gorbachev remained president of the USSR. The dual power did not suit the ambitious Yeltsin, although many researchers and politicians argue that the collapse of the Union was the final goal of the new Russian leader. Perhaps it was a political order, which he brilliantly fulfilled.

August coup

The years of B. Yeltsin's rule were marked by significant unrest at the top of the state. Members of the CPSU did not want a change in leadership and understood that with the advent of a new leader, the collapse of the USSR and their removal from power were not far off. Yeltsin spoke out with harsh criticism of the nomenklatura circles, repeatedly accused top leaders of corruption.

Gorbachev and President Yeltsin, whose years of rule were unstable, discussed the cornerstones of their cooperation and decided to politically eliminate the USSR. To do this, it was decided to create a confederation - the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics. On August 20, this document was to be signed by the leaders of all the union republics.

The GKChP launched an active operation on August 18-21, 1991. During Gorbachev's stay in Crimea, a temporary state body, the State Emergency Committee, was created, and a state of emergency was introduced in the country. This was reported to the population by radio. The Democratic forces led by Yeltsin and Rutskoi began to resist the old party leadership.

The conspirators had some support in the army and the KGB. They pulled up some separate groups of troops to bring them into the capital. Meanwhile, RSFSR President Yeltsin was on a business trip. Opponents of the collapse of the Union decided to detain him upon arrival as far as possible from the White House. Other putschists decided to go to Gorbachev, to convince him to introduce a state of emergency by their decree and appeal to the people.

On August 19, the media announced the resignation of M. Gorbachev for health reasons, and. about. President was appointed Gennady Yanaev.

Yeltsin and his supporters were supported by the opposition radio Ekho Moskvy. The Alpha detachment arrived at the president's dacha, but no order was issued to block it or take it into custody, so Boris Nikolayevich was able to mobilize all his supporters.

Yeltsin arrives at the White House, and local rallies begin in Moscow. Ordinary democratic-minded citizens are trying to resist the GKChP. The protesters built barricades on the square and dismantled the paving stones. Tanks without ammunition and 10 BRMDs were brought to the square.

On the 21st mass clashes began, three citizens were killed. The conspirators were arrested, and Boris Yeltsin, whose years of rule were tense from the very beginning, dissolved the CPSU and nationalized the property of the party. The coup plan failed.

As a result, in December 1991, secretly from M. Gorbachev, the Belovezhskaya Accords were signed, which put an end to the USSR and gave rise to new independent republics.

Crisis of 1993

In September 1993, former associates quarreled. B. N. Yeltsin, whose years of rule were very difficult in the initial period, understood that the opposition in the person of Vice-President A. Rutskoi and the Supreme Council of the RSFSR in every possible way hinders new economic reforms. In this regard, B. Yeltsin issued a decree in 1400 - on the dissolution of the Armed Forces. A decision was made on new elections to the Federal Assembly.

Naturally, such a monopolization of power caused a protest among the members of the Supreme Council. As usual, equipment was driven to the capital, people were taken to the streets. Several times they tried to impeach the president, but Yeltsin ignored the law. Supporters of the Armed Forces were dispersed, opposition leaders were arrested. As a result of the clashes, according to various sources, about 200 people died, more than a thousand were injured and wounded.

After the victory of B. Yeltsin and his supporters in Russia, there was a transitional period of the president's dictatorship. All authorities linking Russia with the USSR were liquidated.

Socio-economic reforms of B. Yeltsin

Many economists and politicians, looking back at the years of Yeltsin's rule in Russia, call his policies chaotic and stupid. It didn't have a clear plan. For the first few years, the state was generally in a political crisis, which eventually resulted in the 1993 coup.

Many ideas of the president and his supporters were promising, but in implementing them according to the old monopolized system, Yeltsin ran into many pitfalls. As a result, the reform of the state led to a protracted crisis in the economic sphere, the loss of deposits from the population and complete distrust of the authorities.

The main reforms of President Yeltsin:

• price liberalization, free market;
• land reform - the transfer of land to private hands;
• privatization;
• reforming political power.

First Chechen War

In 1991, the independent Republic of Ichkeria was formed on the territory of Chechnya. This state of affairs did not suit Russia. Dzhokhar Dudayev became the president of the new independent republic. The Russian Armed Forces declared the elections invalid. The victory of the separatist forces led to the collapse of the Chechen-Ingush Republic. Ingushetia decided to remain autonomous within Russia. Based on this desire, Boris Yeltsin, whose years of rule were already washed with rivers of blood, decided to send troops during the 1992 Ossetian-Ingush conflict. Chechnya was actually an independent state, not recognized by anyone. In fact, a civil war was going on in the country. In 1994, Yeltsin decided to send troops to restore order in the Chechen People's Republic. As a result, the armed conflict with the use of Russian troops lasted two years.

Second presidential term

The second presidential term was extremely difficult for B. Yeltsin. Firstly, constant heart problems affected, and secondly, the country was on the verge of a crisis, which the "sick" president did not have the strength to cope with. The newly elected president staked on the "political youth" represented by Chubais and Nemtsov. Their active implementation of the reformist course did not lead to the expected increase in GDP, the country lived on multi-billion dollar loans. In 1998, Yeltsin, whose years of rule were not successful for the state, began to look for a successor. They became the unknown head of the FSB - V. Putin.

Resignation

In 1998, Boris Yeltsin's "sand" economy collapsed. Default, price increases, job cuts, total instability, shutdown of large enterprises. The virtual market economy could not withstand the harsh realities. Having chosen a worthy candidate for his post and secured V. Putin's commitment to a comfortable old age, the first President of Russia, having addressed the TV audience, resigned.

• Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was born on February 1, 1931 in the village of Butka, Talitsky District, Sverdlovsk Region.
• Yeltsin's father, Nikolai Ignatievich, was a carpenter. During the years of repression, he spent several months in prison for anti-Soviet propaganda.
• Yeltsin's mother's name was Claudia Vasilievna (Starygin's maiden name). She gave birth to two children, Boris was the eldest.
• In high school, Boris Yeltsin studied quite successfully, but after the 7th grade he was expelled for behavior. After that, the future president quickly manages to recover, and he receives a full school education.
• Yeltsin does not enter the army for health reasons: due to an injury received in childhood, he lost two fingers on his hand.
• 1955 - Yeltsin graduated from the construction department of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. CM. Kirov with the qualification of civil engineer. After graduation, he began working as an ordinary foreman, over the next years moving up the career ladder to the position of head of the Sverdlovsk DSK.
• 1956 - Boris Yeltsin marries his classmate Naina Iosifovna Girina.
• 1957 - Yeltsin's daughter Elena is born.
• 1960 - Yeltsin's second daughter Tatyana is born.
• 1961 - Boris Nikolayevich joins the CPSU.
• 1968 - the beginning of party work. Yeltsin becomes head of the construction department of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU.
• 1975 - the post of Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU, the area of ​​​​responsibility - the industrial development of the region.
• 1981 - at the XXVI Congress, Boris Yeltsin was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU; held this position until 1990. In the same year, he headed the construction department of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
• 1976 - 1985 - First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU.
• 1978 - 1989 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (member of the Council of the Union).
• 1979 - Boris Yeltsin's eldest granddaughter Ekaterina is born.
• 1981 - the birth of a grandson, who is given the name and surname of his grandfather. This is the desire of Boris Nikolaevich, who has no sons, therefore, there is a threat of interruption of the family.
• 1983 - the birth of the granddaughter Maria.
• 1984 - 1985, 1986 - 1988 - Yeltsin is a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
• June 1985 - transfer to work in Moscow as Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU for construction.
• December 1985 - November 1987 - First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU.
• October 1987 - the October plenum of the Central Committee, at which Boris Yeltsin speaks with harsh criticism of the party leadership and personally M.S. Gorbachev. The plenum condemned Yeltsin's speech, and shortly after it, Boris Nikolayevich was removed from the post of first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee with a transfer to a lower-ranking position of deputy head of Gosstroy.
• March 1989 - Election as a People's Deputy of the USSR.
• June 1989 - December 1990 - Membership in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
• March 1990 - Boris Yeltsin was elected People's Deputy of the RSFSR.
• July of the same year - Yeltsin was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, at the same time he left the party.
• June 12, 1991 - Elected President of the RSFSR.
• August of the same year - the confrontation between Yeltsin's supporters and the State Emergency Committee. The ban on the activities of the CPSU.
• August 19, 1991 - the famous speech of Boris Yeltsin, delivered from the tank. A decree was read out declaring the GKChP illegitimate. The victory over the putsch and the final ban on the activities of the CPSU.
• November 12, 1991 - Boris Nikolayevich was awarded the medal of democracy established by the International Association of Political Consultants.
• December 1991 - The USSR officially ceases to exist. In Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk (head of Ukraine) and Stanislav Shushkevich (head of Belarus) sign an agreement on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns.
• 1992 - 1993 - with the support of the President, privatization is carried out in Russia, economic reform is launched.
• September-October 1993 - the confrontation between Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet, which resulted in the dissolution of parliament. The peak of unrest in Moscow falls on October 3-4, supporters of the Supreme Council captured the Television Center, the situation is taken under control with the help of tanks.
• 1995 - the birth of the youngest granddaughter of Boris Yeltsin Tatyana.
• 1994 - 1996 - the first Chechen war, a huge number of victims among the civilian population, military personnel and law enforcement officers.
• May 1996 - Boris Yeltsin in Khasavyurt signs the order to withdraw troops from Chechnya, which should mean the end of the first Chechen war.
• The same year - the first term of Boris Yeltsin's presidency expires, he enters the election campaign for the right to remain for a second term. More than 1 million 300 thousand signatures have been submitted in support of it. The campaign is held under the slogan "Vote or lose". On June 16, Yeltsin won 35.28% of the vote in the first round. Now his main competitor in the elections is the communist G.A. Zyuganov. On July 3, the second round takes place, the result is 53.82% of the votes. Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian Federation for a second term.
• November 5, 1996 - Yeltsin underwent coronary artery bypass surgery.
• 1998 - 1999 - default, government crisis. In a short period of time, Yeltsin replaces Viktor Chernomyrdin, Sergei Kiriyenko, Yevgeny Primakov, Sergei Stepashin as prime minister.
• August 1999 - Secretary of the Security Council Vladimir Putin was appointed Acting Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
• December 31, 1999 - in a New Year's address to the Russians, Boris Yeltsin announces the early resignation of his presidential powers. Prime Minister V.V. Putin. The latter provides the retired Yeltsin and his family with a guarantee of complete security.
• After his resignation, Boris Nikolayevich lives with his family in Barvikha.
• April 23, 2007 Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin dies of cardiac arrest at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

First President of the Russian Federation

Soviet party and Russian politician and statesman, 1st President of Russia. Elected President 2 times - June 12, 1991 and July 3, 1996, held this position from July 10, 1991 to December 31, 1999.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was born on February 1, 1931 in the Sverdlovsk region, the village of Butka, Talitsky district.

Yeltsin - biography

Father, Nikolai Ignatievich, worked as a carpenter. During the years of repression, he went to prison allegedly for anti-Soviet statements. Boris's mother, Claudia Vasilievna - nee Starygina.

Boris was the eldest of her two children.

At school, Boris Yeltsin studied well, according to him, but after the 7th grade was expelled from school for bad behavior, however, he achieved (reaching the city committee of the party) that he was allowed to enter the 8th grade at another school.

In the army B.N. Yeltsin did not serve for health reasons: in childhood he was injured and lost 2 fingers on his hand.

In 1955 B. Yeltsin graduated from the Ural Polytechnic Institute. CM. Kirov - Faculty of Civil Engineering with a degree in civil engineering. Initially, he worked as an ordinary foreman, gradually moving up in his career to the position of head of the DSK.

In 1956, Boris Yeltsin started a family by choosing his classmate Naina Iosifovna Girina as his wife, baptized Anastasia). She is a civil engineer by education, from 1955 to 1985. worked at the Sverdlovsk Institute "Vodokanalproekt" as an engineer, senior engineer, chief engineer of the project.

A year later, in 1958, a daughter, Elena, was born in the Yeltsin family. In 1960 - 2nd daughter Tatyana.

The year 1961 was significant for Boris Nikolayevich in that he joined the ranks of the CPSU.

Boris Yeltsin - a career in the party

In 1968, his party work began: Yeltsin in the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU took the post of head of the construction department.

1975 - further promotion on the party ladder: B.N. Yeltsin was elected secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU of Sverdlovsk, he became responsible for the development of industry in the region.

In 1981, at the XXVI Congress of the CPSU, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, he headed the construction department, in this position B.N. Yeltsin worked until 1990.

In 1976 - 1985. he returned to the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU to the post of 1st Secretary.

In 1978 - 1989 BN Yeltsin was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

In 1981, Boris Nikolaevich gave his name and surname to the born grandson, since B. Yeltsin had no sons, which threatened to interrupt the family.

In 1984, Yeltsin became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR - until 1988.

Moved to work in Moscow in June 1985 as Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for Construction.

From December 1985 to November 1987 he worked as the 1st Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU.

In October 1987, at the plenum of the Central Committee B Yeltsin speaks with harsh criticism of M. Gorbachev and the party leadership. The plenum condemned Yeltsin's speech, and shortly thereafter Boris Nikolayevich was transferred to the post of deputy head of the Gosstroy, lower in rank than the 1st secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU.

In March 1989 BN Yeltsin was elected a people's deputy of the USSR.

In 1990, Boris Yeltsin became a people's deputy of the RSFSR, and in July of the same year he was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, and he left the CPSU.

Yeltsin President of the Russian Federation

June 12, 1991 B.N. Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian Federation. After his election, the main slogans of B. Yeltsin were the fight against the privileges of the nomenklatura and the independence of Russia from the USSR.

On July 10, 1991, Boris Yeltsin took an oath of allegiance to the people of Russia and the Russian Constitution, and took office as president of the RSFSR.

In August 1991, a confrontation between Yeltsin and the putschists began, which led to a proposal to ban the activities of the Communist Party, and on August 19, Boris Yeltsin delivered a famous speech from a tank, in which he read out a decree on the illegitimate activities of the State Emergency Committee. The coup is defeated, the activities of the CPSU are completely banned.

On November 12, 1991, the medal of democracy established by the International Association of Political Consultants was awarded to Boris N. Yeltsin for democratic reforms in Russia.

In December 1991, the USSR officially ceased to exist: in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk (President of Ukraine) and Stanislav Shushkevich (President of Belarus) create and sign an agreement on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Soon, most of the union republics joined the Commonwealth, signing the Alma-Ata Declaration on December 21.

Russian President Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin.

December 25, 1991 B.N. Yeltsin received full presidential power in Russia in connection with the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the actual collapse of the USSR.

1992 - 1993 - a new stage in the construction of the Russian state - privatization has begun, an economic reform is being carried out, supported by President B.N. Yeltsin.

In September-October 1993, a confrontation between Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet began, which led to the dissolution of the parliament. In Moscow, the riots, which peaked on October 3-4, supporters of the Supreme Council seized the television center, the situation was brought under control only with the help of tanks.

In 1994, the First Chechen War began, which led to a huge number of casualties among both the civilian population and the military, as well as law enforcement officers.

In May 1996, Boris Yeltsin was forced to sign an order in Khasavyurt on the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya, which theoretically means the end of the first Chechen war.

Yeltsin - years of government

In the same year, the first term of the presidency of B.N. Yeltsin, and he began the election campaign for a second term. More than 1 million signatures have been submitted in support of Yeltsin. The campaign slogan is "Vote or you lose." As a result of the 1st round of elections, B.N. Yeltsin is gaining 35.28% of the vote. Yeltsin's main competitor in the elections is the communist G.A. Zyuganov. But after the second round with a score of 53.82% of the votes, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Federation for a second term.

On November 5, 1996, B. Yeltsin ended up in a clinic where he underwent a heart operation - coronary artery bypass grafting.

In 1998 and 1999 in Russia, as a result of unsuccessful economic policy, a default occurs, then a government crisis. At the suggestion of Yeltsin, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Sergei Kiriyenko, Yevgeny Primakov, Sergei Stepashin resign, after which, in August 1999, Secretary of the Security Council Vladimir Putin was appointed Acting Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

On December 31, 1999, in a New Year's address to the people of Russia, B. Yeltsin announced his early resignation. Prime Minister V.V. Putin, who provides Yeltsin and his family with guarantees of complete security.


After the resignation, Boris Nikolayevich and his family settled in a resort village near Moscow - Barvikha.

On April 23, 2007, Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin died in the Central Clinical Hospital of Moscow from cardiac arrest and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
He was married once, had 2 daughters, 5 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Wife - Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina (Girina) (in baptism - Anastasia). Daughters - Elena Okulova (married to the acting general director of the Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines joint-stock company) and Tatyana Dyachenko (has a military rank - colonel, in 1997 she was an adviser to the president).

The results of Yeltsin's rule

BN Yeltsin is historically noted as the first popularly elected President of Russia, a reformer of the political structure of the country, a radical reformer of Russia's economic course. Known for the unique decision to ban the CPSU, the course of refusing to build socialism, decisions to dissolve the Supreme Council, famous for the storming of the Government House in Moscow in 1993 using armored vehicles and the military campaign in Chechnya.

Political scientists and the media characterized Yeltsin as an extraordinary personality, unpredictable in behavior, eccentric, power-hungry, his perseverance and cunning were also noted. Opponents of Boris Nikolaevich argued that cruelty, cowardice, vindictiveness, deceit, low intellectual and cultural level are also inherent in him.

Critics of the Yeltsin regime often refer to his period as Yeltsinism. Boris Yeltsin, as president, was criticized in connection with the general negative trends in the country's development in the 1990s: a recession in the economy, the state's rejection of social obligations, a sharp decline in living standards, exacerbation of social problems and a decrease in the population in connection with this. In the second half of the 1990s, he was often accused of transferring the main levers of economic management into the hands of a group of influential entrepreneurs - the oligarchs and the corrupt elite of the state apparatus, and his entire economic policy was reduced to lobbying the interests of one or another group of people, depending on their influence.

By the end of 1992, the division of the country's inhabitants into rich and poor increased sharply. Nearly half of Russia's population was below the poverty line.
By 1996, industrial production was reduced by 50%, and agriculture - by a third. The loss of the gross domestic product amounted to approximately 40%.
By 1999, unemployment in Russia had increased greatly and covered 9 million people.

On December 8, 1991, the Presidents of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia signed the Belovezhskaya Agreement. This was done in spite of the referendum on the preservation of the USSR, which took place the day before - March 17, 1991. This agreement, according to Yeltsin's opponents, destroyed the USSR and caused bloody conflicts in Chechnya, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh and Tajikistan.

The entry of troops into Chechnya began on December 11, 1994, after Yeltsin's decree "On measures to suppress the activities of illegal armed groups on the territory of the Chechen Republic and in the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict." As a result of the ill-conceived actions of the political elite of Russia, great casualties occurred both among the military and among civilians: tens of thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were injured. The subsequent actions of the Chechen fighters, which were aimed at even wider expansion in the North Caucasus, forced Yeltsin to resume hostilities in Chechnya in September 1999, which resulted in a full-scale war.

Rutskoi's supporters stormed the Moscow mayor's office and the Ostankino TV center on October 3, and were brutally suppressed. In the early morning of October 4, troops were brought into Moscow, while 123 people died on both sides (more than 1.5 thousand people - according to the opposition). These events have become a black spot in the recent history of Russia.

To introduce the principles of a market economy in January 1992, economic reforms began with price liberalization. Within a few days, prices for foodstuffs and essential goods increased manifold in the country, a huge number of enterprises went bankrupt, and citizens' deposits in state banks depreciated. A confrontation began between the president and the Congress of People's Deputies, which sought to amend the constitution to limit the rights of the president.

In August 1998, default broke out, a financial crisis caused by the inability of the government to meet its debt obligations. The three-fold depreciation of the ruble led to the collapse of numerous small and medium-sized enterprises and the destruction of the emerging middle class. The banking sector was almost completely destroyed. However, as early as next year, the economic situation managed to stabilize. This was facilitated by an increase in oil prices on world markets, which made it possible to gradually start paying off external debt. One of the consequences of the crisis was the revival of the activities of domestic industrial enterprises, which replaced on the domestic market products previously purchased abroad.

The sharp deterioration of the demographic situation in Russia began in 1992. One of the reasons for the decline in the population was the reduction by the state of social support for the population. The incidence of AIDS has increased 60 times, and the death rate of infants has doubled.

But still, despite such negative assessments of the rule of this leader, Yeltsin's memory is immortalized.

On April 23, 2008, a solemn opening ceremony of the monument to Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, at the same time the Ural State Technical University was named after B. Yeltsin.

B.N. Yeltsin wrote 3 books:
1990 - "Confession on a given topic"
1994 - "Notes of the President"
2000 - "Presidential Marathon", became the laureate of the International Literary Prize "Capri-90".

At one time it was fashionable in the circle of Russian officials to engage in one of Yeltsin's favorite pastimes - playing tennis.

Yeltsin was an honorary citizen of the years. Kazan, Yerevan (Armenia), Samara region, Turkmenistan, was awarded in 1981 the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Badge of Honor, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor.

On November 12, 1991, BN Yeltsin was awarded the Medal of Democracy by the International Association of Political Consultants, established in 1982;

Prime Minister:	Ivan Stepanovich Silaev Oleg Ivanovich Lobov (acting) himself Yegor Timurovich Gaidar (acting) Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin Sergei Vladilenovich Kirienko Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (acting) Evgeny Maksimovich Primakov Sergey Vadimovich Stepashin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
Successor:	Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
Predecessor:	Nikolai Matveevich Gribachev
Successor:	Ruslan Imranovich Khasbulatov
Predecessor:	Ivan Stepanovich Silaev Oleg Ivanovich Lobov (acting)
Successor:	Egor Timurovich Gaidar (acting) Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin
	CPSU (1961-1990)
Education:	Ural Polytechnic Institute S. M. Kirova
Profession:	civil engineer
Birth:	February 1, 1931, p. Butka, Butkinsky district, Ural region, RSFSR, USSR (now the Talitsky district of the Sverdlovsk region)
Buried:	Novodevichy cemetery
	Nikolai Ignatievich Yeltsin
	Claudia Vasilievna Starygina
	Naina Iosifovna Girina
	Elena Borisovna Okulova Tatyana Borisovna Yumasheva
Autograph:

In the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU

In the Supreme Soviet of the USSR

In the Moscow city committee of the CPSU

Presidency

Domestic politics

President of the RSFSR

The collapse of the USSR

1991-1992

Political crisis

Termination of the activities of the Supreme Council

October events of 1993

constitutional reform

Chechen conflict

Resignation

Economic reforms in the 1990s

Demographic situation

Foreign policy

Yeltsin government

Vice President

Heads of government

Ministers of Foreign Affairs

Ministers of Defense

Yeltsin after his resignation

Death and funeral

Boris Yeltsin's assessments

"Yeltsinism"

Personal qualities

Public opinion about Yeltsin

Attitude towards Yeltsin in the West

perpetuation of memory

Awards and titles

Books by B. N. Yeltsin

(February 1, 1931, the village of Butka - April 23, 2007, Moscow) - Soviet party and Russian politician and statesman, the first President of Russia. He was elected President twice - on June 12, 1991 and on July 3, 1996, he held this position from July 10, 1991 to December 31, 1999.

He went down in history as the first elected President of Russia, one of the organizers of resistance to the actions of the State Emergency Committee, a radical reformer of the socio-political and economic structure of Russia. He is also known for his decisions to ban the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the course to reject socialism, the decisions to dissolve the Supreme Council, suppress the armed resistance of its defenders and storm the House of Soviets of Russia using armored vehicles in 1993, the start of the military campaign in Chechnya in 1994 and its completion in 1996, the re-entry of troops and the bombing of Chechnya in September 1999, which served as the beginning of the second Chechen military campaign.

Childhood and youth

Born in the village of Butka, Talitsky District, Ural (now Sverdlovsk) Region, in a family of dispossessed peasants.

Yeltsin later recalled:

“... The Yeltsin family, as it is written in the description that our village council sent to the Chekists in Kazan, rented land in the amount of five hectares. “Before the revolution, his father’s farm was a kulak one, had a water mill and a windmill, had a threshing machine, had permanent farm laborers, had up to 12 hectares of sowing, had a self-harvester, had up to five horses, up to four cows ...” Had, had, had ... That was his fault - he worked hard, took on a lot. And the Soviet government loved modest, inconspicuous, low-profile. Strong, intelligent, bright people she did not like and did not spare. In the thirtieth year, the family was "evicted". Grandfather was disenfranchised. Overlaid with individual agricultural tax. In a word, they put a bayonet to the throat, as they knew how to do it. And grandfather "went on the run" ... "

Yeltsin spent his childhood in the city of Berezniki, Perm Region, where he graduated from school (modern school No. 1 named after A. S. Pushkin). According to his own statement, he did well in his studies, was the head of the class, but he had complaints about his behavior, he was pugnacious. According to other sources, neither at school nor at the institute, he did not shine with good grades. He had conflicts with teachers, after the seventh grade he was expelled from school with a “wolf ticket” due to a conflict with the class teacher, however, he achieved (reaching the city committee of the party) that he was allowed to enter the eighth grade at another school.

He did not serve in the army due to the absence of two fingers on his left hand, which he lost as a result of a grenade explosion, studying it with hammer blows.

In 1950 he entered the Ural Polytechnic Institute. S. M. Kirov to the Faculty of Civil Engineering, in 1955 he graduated from it with the qualification of "civil engineer". Theme of the thesis: "Television tower". In his student years, he was seriously involved in volleyball, played for the city's national team, and became a master of sports.

Professional and party activities

• In 1955, he was assigned to the Uraltyazhtrubstroy trust, where he mastered several construction specialties in a year, then worked on the construction of various objects as a foreman, site manager, and chief control engineer. In 1961 he joined the CPSU. In 1963 he was appointed chief engineer, and soon - the head of the Sverdlovsk house-building plant.

• In 1963, at the XXIV conference of the party organization of the Kirovsky district of the city of Sverdlovsk, he was unanimously elected a delegate to the city conference of the CPSU. At the XXV regional conference he was elected a member of the Kirov district committee of the CPSU and a delegate to the Sverdlovsk regional conference of the CPSU.

In the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU

In 1968 he was transferred to party work in the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU, where he headed the construction department. In 1975 he was elected secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU, responsible for the industrial development of the region.

In 1976, on the recommendation of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, he was elected first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU (the actual head of the Sverdlovsk region), he held this position until 1985. By order of Yeltsin, a twenty-story building, the tallest in the USSR, building of the regional committee of the CPSU, was built in Sverdlovsk, which received the nicknames "White Tooth" and "member of the CPSU" in the city. He organized the construction of a highway connecting Sverdlovsk with the north of the region, as well as the resettlement of residents from barracks to new houses. He organized the execution of the decision of the Politburo on the demolition of the Ipatiev house (the site of the execution of the royal family in 1918), which was not carried out by his predecessor Ya. Significantly improved the supply of food to the Sverdlovsk region, intensified the construction of poultry farms and farms. Under Yeltsin's leadership, milk coupons were abolished. In 1980, he actively supported the initiative to create the SWC.

Being at party work in Sverdlovsk, Boris Yeltsin received the military rank of colonel.

1978-1989 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (member of the Council of the Union). From 1984 to 1985 and from 1986 to 1988 he was a member of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces. In addition, in 1981, at the XXVI Congress of the CPSU, he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU and was a member of it until he left the party in 1990.

In 1985, after the election of M. S. Gorbachev as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, he was transferred to work in Moscow (on the recommendation of E. K. Ligachev), in April he headed the construction department of the CPSU Central Committee, and in June 1985 he was elected Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for construction issues.

In the Moscow city committee of the CPSU

In December 1985, he was recommended by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the post of First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee (MGK) of the CPSU. Arriving at this position, he fired many senior officials of the CPSU MGK and the first secretaries of the district committees. Gained notoriety for numerous populist moves, such as widely publicized Moscow television trips on public transport, checking stores and warehouses. Organized food fairs in Moscow. In recent months, he began to publicly criticize the leadership of the party.

At the XXVII Congress of the CPSU in February 1986, he was elected a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, he remained in this position until February 18, 1988.

After a series of conflicts with the leadership of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, on October 21, 1987, he spoke quite sharply at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (criticized the style of work of some members of the Politburo, in particular, E. K. Ligacheva, the slow pace of "perestroika", the influence of R. M. Gorbacheva on husband; among other things, he announced the emergence of Gorbachev's "personality cult"), after which he asked to be relieved of his duties as a candidate member of the Politburo. After that, he was criticized, including by those who had previously supported him (for example, the "architect of perestroika" A. N. Yakovlev). After a series of critical speeches, he repented and admitted his mistakes:

The plenum passed a resolution deeming Yeltsin's speech "politically erroneous" and invited the MGK to consider re-electing its first secretary. The transcript of Yeltsin's speech was not published in time in the press, which gave rise to many rumors. In "samizdat" appeared several false versions of the text, much more radical than the original.

November 9, 1987 was admitted to the hospital. According to some testimonies (for example, the testimony of M. S. Gorbachev, N. I. Ryzhkov and V. I. Vorotnikov) - because of an attempt to commit suicide (or simulate a suicide attempt) (“case with scissors”).

On November 11, 1987, at the MGK Plenum, he repented, admitted his mistakes, but was relieved of his post as first secretary of the MGK. He was not, however, completely demoted, but remained in the ranks of the nomenklatura.

On January 14, 1988, he was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Gosstroy of the USSR - Minister of the USSR.

February 18, 1988 - by the decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, he was relieved of his duties as a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (but remained a member of the Central Committee).

In the summer of 1988 he became a delegate to the XIX All-Union Party Conference from Karelia. On July 1, he addressed the party conference with a request for "political rehabilitation all the same during his lifetime":

You know that my speech at the October Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU was recognized as "politically erroneous." But the questions raised there, at the Plenum, were repeatedly raised by the press and raised by the communists. These days, all these questions were practically raised from this rostrum both in the report and in the speeches. I believe that my only mistake in my speech was that I spoke at the wrong time - before the 70th anniversary of October. I am deeply saddened by what has happened and I ask the conference to cancel the decision of the Plenum on this issue. If you consider it possible to cancel, you will thereby rehabilitate me in the eyes of the communists. And this is not only personal, it will be in the spirit of perestroika, it will be democratic and, it seems to me, will help it by adding confidence to people.

Election as People's Deputy of the USSR

On March 26, 1989, he was elected People's Deputy of the USSR for the national-territorial district No. 1 (Moscow city), receiving 91.53% of the votes of Muscovites, with a turnout of almost 90%. Yeltsin was opposed by the government-backed general director of ZIL, Yevgeny Brakov. During the elections at the Congress, Yeltsin did not get into the Supreme Soviet, but deputy A.I. Kazannik (later appointed by Yeltsin as the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation) refused the mandate in favor of Yeltsin. From June 1989 to December 1990 - Member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was elected chairman of the Committee of the USSR Armed Forces on construction and architecture, in connection with this he became a member of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces. One of the leaders of the Interregional Deputy Group.

In 1989, a series of scandals occurred: in the summer of 1989, B. N. Yeltsin, invited to the United States, allegedly spoke while drunk - a reprint of a publication about this incident from an Italian newspaper La Repubblica in Pravda it was perceived as a provocation by the party elite against the "dissident" Yeltsin, led to mass protests and the resignation of the editor-in-chief of the newspaper V. G. Afanasyev. According to Yeltsin himself, the incident is explained by the dose of sleeping pills that Yeltsin drank in the morning, suffering from insomnia. In September 1989, Yeltsin fell from a bridge in the Moscow region. He also got into a car accident: on September 21, the Volga car, on which Yeltsin was traveling, collided with a Zhiguli, Yeltsin received a hip bruise.

On April 25, 1990, during an unofficial visit to Spain, he got into a plane accident, suffered a spinal injury and was operated on. A month after the incident, during the election of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, there were hints in the press that the accident was organized by the KGB of the USSR. The opinion was expressed that the numerous rumors that arose in connection with this accident influenced the outcome of the elections.

On May 29, 1990, he was elected (on the third attempt, gaining 535 votes against 467 from the "Kremlin candidate" A.V. Vlasov) Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. During the presidency of Yeltsin, the Supreme Council adopted a number of laws that influenced the further development of the country, including, on December 24, 1990, the Law on Property in the RSFSR.

On June 12, 1990, the Congress adopted the Declaration on State Sovereignty of the RSFSR, which provides for the priority of Russian laws over those of the Union. This dramatically increased the political weight of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, who previously played a secondary, dependent role. Day June 12 in 1991 became, according to the decision of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation, a public holiday of the Russian Federation.

On July 12, 1990, at the XXVIII, the last congress of the CPSU, Yeltsin criticized the Communist Party and its leader Gorbachev, and announced his withdrawal from the party.

On February 19, 1991, B. N. Yeltsin, in a speech on television, criticized the policy of the USSR government and for the first time demanded the resignation of M. S. Gorbachev and the transfer of power to the Federation Council, consisting of the leaders of the union republics.

On February 21, 1991, at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, a “letter of six” was read out (deputy chairmen of the Supreme Council S. P. Goryacheva and B. M. Isaev, chairmen of both chambers V. B. Isakov and R. G. Abdulatipov and their deputies A A. Veshnyakova and V. G. Syrovatko), which criticized the authoritarian style of B. N. Yeltsin in managing the work of the Supreme Council. R. I. Khasbulatov (first deputy chairman) actively spoke in his defense, and the deputies did not attach much importance to this letter.

Presidency

Domestic politics

President of the RSFSR

On June 12, 1991, he was elected President of the RSFSR, receiving 45,552,041 votes, which amounted to 57.30 percent of those who took part in the vote, and significantly ahead of Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, who, despite the support of the federal authorities, received only 16.85 percent votes. Together with B. N. Yeltsin, Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoi was elected Vice President. After the election, the main slogans of B. N. Yeltsin were the fight against the privileges of the nomenklatura and the maintenance of Russia's sovereignty within the USSR.

These were the first nationwide presidential elections in the history of Russia. The President of the USSR Gorbachev was not elected by the people, but was elected as a result of voting at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.

On July 10, 1991, Boris N. Yeltsin took an oath of allegiance to the people of Russia and the Russian Constitution, and took office as President of the RSFSR. After taking the oath, he delivered a keynote speech, which he began energetically and emotionally, with an understanding of the solemnity of the moment.

One of Yeltsin's first presidential decrees dealt with the liquidation of party organizations at enterprises. Yeltsin began to negotiate the signing of a new union treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev and the heads of other union republics.

Putsch

On August 19, 1991, after the announcement of the creation of the State Emergency Committee and the isolation of Gorbachev in Crimea, Yeltsin led the opposition to the conspirators and turned the House of Soviets of Russia ("White House") into a center of resistance. Already on the first day of the putsch, Yeltsin, speaking from a tank in front of the White House, called the actions of the GKChP a coup d'état, then published a number of decrees on non-recognition of the actions of the GKChP. On August 23, Yeltsin signed a decree on the suspension of the activities of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, and on November 6, on the termination of the activities of the CPSU.

After the failure of the putsch and Gorbachev's return to Moscow, negotiations on a new Union Treaty reached an impasse, and Gorbachev began to finally lose control levers, which gradually retreated to Yeltsin and the heads of other union republics.

The collapse of the USSR

In December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, secretly from the President of the USSR Gorbachev, held negotiations with the President of Ukraine Leonid Makarovich Kravchuk and the head of the Belarusian parliament Stanislav Stanislavovich Shushkevich on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 8, 1991, in Viskuli, the presidents of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia signed the Belovezhskaya Agreement. It was signed in spite of the referendum on the preservation of the USSR, which was held on March 17, 1991. On December 8, an agreement on the creation of the CIS was signed in Minsk, and soon most of the union republics joined the Commonwealth, signing the Alma-Ata Declaration on December 21.

According to Yeltsin's opponents, the Belovezhskaya agreement destroyed the USSR and caused a number of bloody conflicts in the post-Soviet space: Chechnya, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Tajikistan.

Alexander Lukashenko believes that the most negative consequence of the collapse of the USSR was the formation of a unipolar world.

According to Stanislav Shushkevich in 1996, Yeltsin said that he regretted signing the Belovezhskaya agreement.

On December 25, 1991, Boris Yeltsin received full presidential power in Russia in connection with the resignation of the President of the USSR Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and the actual collapse of the USSR. After the resignation of M. S. Gorbachev, B. N. Yeltsin was given a residence in the Kremlin and the so-called nuclear briefcase.

1991-1992

A political crisis was added to the economic problems of the early 1990s. Separatist sentiments intensified in some regions of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. So, in Chechnya they did not recognize the sovereignty of Russia on its territory, in Tatarstan they were going to introduce their own currency and refused to pay taxes to the republican budget. Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin managed to convince the heads of the regions to sign the Federal Treaty, on March 31, 1992 it was signed by the President and the heads of the regions (except for Tatarstan and Chechnya), and on April 10 it was included in the Constitution of the RSFSR.

In January 1993, an assassination attempt was to be made on Yeltsin. A mentally ill major in the Russian army, Ivan Kislov, repeatedly tried to kill the president, but was eventually detained.

Political crisis

On December 10, 1992, the day after the Congress of People's Deputies did not approve the candidacy of Yegor Timurovich Gaidar for the post of Prime Minister, B. N. Yeltsin sharply criticized the work of the Congress of People's Deputies and tried to disrupt its work, urging his supporters to leave the meeting. A political crisis has begun. After negotiations between Boris Yeltsin, Ruslan Khasbulatov and Valery Zorkin and a multi-stage vote, the Congress of People's Deputies on December 12 adopted a resolution on the stabilization of the constitutional order, and Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin was appointed Chairman of the Government.

After the Eighth Congress of People's Deputies, at which the resolution on the stabilization of the constitutional order was canceled and decisions were made that undermine the independence of the government and the Central Bank, on March 20, 1993, Boris Yeltsin, speaking on television with an appeal to the people, announced that he had signed a decree on the introduction "special mode of administration". The next day, the Supreme Council appealed to the Constitutional Court, calling Yeltsin's appeal "an attack on the constitutional foundations of Russian statehood." The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, not yet having a signed decree, recognized Yeltsin's actions related to the televised address as unconstitutional, and saw grounds for removing him from office. The Supreme Soviet convened the IX (Extraordinary) Congress of People's Deputies. However, as it turned out a few days later, in fact, another decree was signed that did not contain gross violations of the Constitution. On March 28, the Congress attempted to remove Yeltsin from the presidency. Speaking at a rally on Vasilyevsky Spusk, Yeltsin vowed not to carry out the decision of the Congress, if it is nevertheless adopted. However, only 617 deputies out of 1033 voted for impeachment, with the required 689 votes.

The day after the impeachment attempt failed, the Congress of People's Deputies scheduled an all-Russian referendum on April 25 on four issues - on confidence in President Yeltsin, on approval of his socio-economic policy, on early presidential elections and on early elections of people's deputies. Boris Yeltsin urged his supporters to vote "all four yes", while the supporters themselves tended to vote "yes-yes-no-yes". According to the results of the referendum on confidence, he received 58.7% of the vote, while 53.0% voted for economic reforms. On the issues of early elections of the president and people's deputies, 49.5% and 67.2% of those who took part in the voting voted “for”, respectively, however, no legally significant decisions were made on these issues (because, according to the laws in force, for this “ more than half of all eligible voters had to vote in favour). The controversial results of the referendum were interpreted by Yeltsin and his entourage in their favor.

After the referendum, Yeltsin focused his efforts on drafting and adopting a new constitution. On April 30, the presidential draft Constitution was published in the Izvestia newspaper, on May 18 the start of the work of the Constitutional Conference was announced, and on June 5 the Constitutional Conference met for the first time in Moscow. After the referendum, Yeltsin practically stopped all business contacts with the leadership of the Supreme Council, although for some time he continued to sign some of the laws adopted by him, and also lost confidence in Vice President A.V. position on suspicion of corruption, which was subsequently not confirmed.

On the evening of September 21, 1993, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, in a televised address to the people, announced that he had signed Decree No. 1400 ordering the termination of the activities of the Supreme Council and the Congress of People's Deputies, and to schedule elections for December 11-12 to a new representative body of power, the Federal Assembly Russian Federation. The Constitutional Court, which met on the night of September 21-22, found in the decree a violation of a number of articles of the Constitution in force at that time, and established the existence of grounds for removing the president from office. The Supreme Council, by its resolution, announced the termination of Yeltsin's presidential powers "in connection with the grossest violation" of the Constitution, regarding this step as a coup d'état, and the temporary transfer of powers to Vice President Rutskoi.

The Supreme Soviet announced the convening of the 10th (Extraordinary) Congress of People's Deputies on September 22. According to the speaker of the Supreme Council R. I. Khasbulatov, those executive authorities that obeyed Yeltsin detained deputies from the regions and prevented their arrival in other ways. In reality, the Congress was able to open only on the evening of September 23. At the same time, the quorum, for which 689 deputies were required, was not reached at the Congress. According to the leadership of the Armed Forces, 639 deputies were present, the presidential side spoke only about 493. Then it was decided to deprive those who did not come to the White House of deputy status, after which a quorum was announced. After that, the congress adopted a resolution on the removal of Yeltsin from office, in accordance with Articles 6 and 10 of the law "On the President of the RSFSR." The confrontation between the president and the forces of law enforcement loyal to him and supporters of the Supreme Council escalated into armed clashes. On October 3, Yeltsin declared a state of emergency. Supporters of the Supreme Council took control of one of the buildings of the Moscow City Hall on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment and tried to enter one of the buildings of the Ostankino television center. Yeltsin declared a state of emergency and, after consultation with Viktor Chernomyrdin and Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, gave the order to storm the House of Soviets building. The storming of the city hall building, the Ostankino television center and the storming of the House of Soviets building with the use of tanks led to numerous casualties (according to official figures - 123 dead, 384 injured) among supporters of the Supreme Council, journalists, law enforcement officers, and random people.

After the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet, Yeltsin concentrated all power in his hands for some time and makes a number of decisions: on the resignation of A.V. local self-government, on the appointment of elections to the Federation Council and a popular vote, as well as by its decrees, cancels and changes a number of provisions of existing laws.

In this regard, some well-known lawyers (including the chairman of the Constitutional Court, Doctor of Law Prof. V. D. Zorkin), statesmen, political scientists, politicians, journalists (primarily from among Yeltsin’s political opponents) noted that a dictatorship. Here is what, for example, the former chairman of the Supreme Council and an active participant in the events (from among Yeltsin's opponents) prof. R. I. Khasbulatov:

In February 1994, the participants in the events were released in accordance with the decision of the State Duma on amnesty (all of them agreed to an amnesty, although they were not convicted).

October events of 1993

From a legal point of view, the events of October 1993 contradicted the Constitution in force at that time. Prior to these events, serious disagreements arose between the president and the Supreme Council. Back in March 1993, Yeltsin planned to introduce the so-called OPUS (special procedure for governing the country) in the event that the deputies expressed no confidence in the president. However, this was not necessary.

On September 21, Decree 1400 was issued. On the same day, the Constitutional Court declared the decree unconstitutional and the Supreme Council appointed A. V. Rutskoi as interim president, but in fact B. N. Yeltsin continued to act as president. On September 22, by order of Yeltsin, the building of the Supreme Council was blocked by the police and disconnected from water and electricity. Thus, the deputies found themselves in a state of siege.

Citizens' protests on the streets on October 3-4, which followed the storming of the Moscow mayor's office and the Ostankino television center by Rutskoi's supporters on October 3, were brutally suppressed. In the early morning of October 4, troops were brought into Moscow, followed by shelling of the House of Soviets, and after 17 hours, the surrender of its defenders. During these events, according to the investigation, 123 people died on both sides, not a single deputy among them.

constitutional reform

On December 12, 1993, elections were held to the Federation Council and the State Duma, as well as a nationwide referendum on the adoption of a draft new Constitution. On December 20, the CEC of Russia announced the results of the referendum: 32.9 million voters (58.4% of active voters) voted in favor, 23.4 million (41.6% of active voters) voted against. The Constitution was adopted because, in accordance with the decree of President Yeltsin dated October 15, 1993 No. 1633 “On holding a popular vote on the draft Constitution of the Russian Federation”, an absolute majority of votes is required for the entry into force of the new Constitution. Subsequently, there were attempts to challenge the results of this vote in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, but the Court refused to consider the case, explaining this by the lack of rights to change several fundamental articles of the Constitution.

The new Constitution of the Russian Federation gave the President significant powers, while the powers of the Parliament were significantly reduced. The Constitution, after being published on December 25 in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, entered into force. On January 11, 1994, both chambers of the Federal Assembly began their work, the constitutional crisis ended.

In early 1994, Yeltsin initiated the signing of an agreement on public consent and an agreement on the delimitation of powers with Tatarstan, and then with other subjects of the Federation.

According to O. A. Platonov, Yeltsin and his inner circle in 1993-1994. they also did not exclude the possibility of the restoration of the monarchy in Russia with the proclamation of the minor (at that time) great-grandson of the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, Georgy Mikhailovich, as the monarch. Yeltsin and his associates were given the role of "collective regent" under Georgy in the event of the implementation of this project; supporters of the idea of ​​restoring the monarchy saw this move as one of the "legitimate" ways to retain power, "without the risk of elections."

Chechen conflict

Back in September 1991, Dudayev's people defeated the Supreme Council of Checheno-Ingushetia in Grozny, chaired by Dokku Zavgaev, a supporter of the State Emergency Committee. Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia Ruslan Khasbulatov then sent them a telegram "I was pleased to learn about the resignation of the Republic's Armed Forces." After the collapse of the USSR, Dzhokhar Dudayev announced the secession of Chechnya from the Russian Federation and the creation of the Republic of Ichkeria.

And even after that, when Dudayev stopped paying taxes to the general budget and forbade Russian special services from entering the republic, the federal center officially continued to transfer money to Dudayev. In 1993, 140 million rubles were allocated for the Kaliningrad region, and 10.5 billion rubles for Chechnya.

Russian oil continued to flow to Chechnya until 1994. Dudayev did not pay for it, but resold it abroad. Dudayev also got a lot of weapons: 2 rocket launchers of the ground forces, 42 tanks, 34 infantry fighting vehicles, 14 armored personnel carriers, 14 lightly armored tractors, 260 aircraft, 57 thousand pieces of small equipment and many other weapons.

Thus, in 1999, a representative of the Yabloko party accused Yeltsin that there were numerous cases of kidnapping in the Chechen Republic: “He, President Yeltsin, is guilty of the fact that in the year when the entire world community celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights and he, President Yeltsin, announced in Russia the year of the defense of human rights, in Russia at the turn of the third millennium the slave trade was revived, serfdom was revived. I mean those 500 of our guys who are captured and every day this number of captives, unfortunately, does not decrease, but increases ... It is he, President Yeltsin, who is to blame for the fact that one of my voters received a call from Chechnya, from Grozny, and offered to ransom his son for 30 thousand dollars, or exchange him for one of the captured Chechens in Russian prisons, convicted Chechens.

On November 30, 1994, B.N. Yeltsin decided to send troops into Chechnya and signed a secret decree No. 2137 “On measures to restore constitutional law and order on the territory of the Chechen Republic”, the Chechen conflict began.

On December 11, 1994, on the basis of Yeltsin's decree "On measures to suppress the activities of illegal armed groups on the territory of the Chechen Republic and in the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict," troops began to enter Chechnya. Many ill-conceived actions led to great casualties among both the military and the civilian population: tens of thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were injured. It often happened that during a military operation or shortly before it, an order to stand down came from Moscow. This gave the Chechen fighters an opportunity to regroup their forces. The first assault on Grozny was ill-conceived and led to heavy casualties: more than 1,500 people died or went missing, 100 Russian servicemen were captured.

In June 1995, during the capture of a hospital and a maternity hospital in Budyonnovsk by a militant detachment led by Sh. Basayev, Yeltsin was in Canada, and decided not to stop the trip, giving Chernomyrdin the opportunity to resolve the situation and negotiate with the militants, he returned only after the completion of all events , dismissed the heads of a number of law enforcement agencies and the governor of the Stavropol Territory. In 1995, in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the legality of Decrees No. 2137 and No. 1833 (“On the Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation”, insofar as it relates to the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in resolving internal conflicts) was challenged by a group of deputies of the State Duma and the Federation Council. According to the Federation Council, the acts contested by it constituted a single system and led to the unlawful use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, since their use on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as other measures prescribed in these acts, are legally possible only within the framework of a state of emergency or martial law. The request emphasizes that the result of these measures were illegal restrictions and massive violations of the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens. According to a group of deputies of the State Duma, the use of the acts disputed by them on the territory of the Chechen Republic, which entailed significant casualties among the civilian population, is contrary to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and international obligations assumed by the Russian Federation. The Constitutional Court terminated the proceedings on the case on the compliance of Decree No. 2137 with the Constitution of the Russian Federation without consideration on the merits, since this document was declared invalid on December 11, 1994.

In August 1996, Chechen fighters drove federal troops out of Grozny. After that, the Khasavyurt agreements were signed, which are considered by many as treacherous.

1996 presidential election

By the beginning of 1996, B. N. Yeltsin, due to the failures and mistakes of economic reform and the war in Chechnya, lost his former popularity, and his rating fell sharply (to 3%); nevertheless, he decided to run for a second term, which he announced on February 15 in Yekaterinburg (although he had previously repeatedly assured that he would not run for a second term). The main opponent of B. N. Yeltsin was the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, G. A. Zyuganov, who advocated a change in the constitutional order, a revision of economic policy, sharply criticized Yeltsin's course and had a fairly high rating. During the election campaign, Yeltsin became more active, began to actively travel around the country with speeches, visited many regions, including Chechnya. Yeltsin's election headquarters launched an active propaganda and advertising campaign under the slogan "vote or lose", after which the gap in the rating between Zyuganov and Yeltsin began to rapidly shrink. Shortly before the elections, a number of populist legislative acts were adopted (for example, Yeltsin's decree on the abolition of conscription into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from 2000; soon this decree was changed by Yeltsin in such a way that references to the transition to a contract basis and the timing of the transition disappeared from it ). On May 28, B. N. Yeltsin and V. S. Chernomyrdin held talks with a Chechen delegation headed by Z. A. Yandarbiev and signed a ceasefire agreement. The election campaign led to the polarization of society, dividing it into supporters of the Soviet system and supporters of the existing system.

A number of journalists, political scientists and historians (including Doctor of Historical Sciences V. A. Nikonov, who at that time was deputy chairman of the All-Russian Movement in Support of B. N. Yeltsin and headed the press center of the election headquarters of B. N. Yeltsin) believe that the 1996 campaign cannot be called democratic elections, due to the widespread use of "administrative resources" ("in full" - V. Nikonov), the repeated excess of the B. N. Yeltsin's election headquarters of the established limit on the funds spent, falsifications , and also due to the fact that almost all the media, with the exception of a few communist newspapers published in small circulations, openly supported B. N. Yeltsin.

According to the results of the first round of voting on June 16, 1996, B. N. Yeltsin won 35.28% of the vote and entered the second round of elections, ahead of G. A. Zyuganov, who received 32.03%. A. I. Lebed received 14.52%, and after the first round, B. N. Yeltsin appointed him Secretary of the Security Council and made a number of personnel changes in the Government and law enforcement agencies. In the second round on July 3, 1996, B. N. Yeltsin received 53.82% of the vote, confidently ahead of Zyuganov, who received only 40.31%.

Between the first and second rounds of voting, B. N. Yeltsin was hospitalized with a heart attack, but he managed to hide this fact from voters. He was not shown in public, but television showed several months earlier, but not aired, of Yeltsin's meetings, which were intended to demonstrate his "high vitality." On July 3, Yeltsin appeared at the polling station of the sanatorium in Barvikha. Yeltsin refused to vote at his place of residence on Osennaya Street in Moscow, fearing that he would not be able to withstand a long passage along the street, stairs and corridor of this site.

Second term of President Yeltsin

After the elections, Boris N. Yeltsin switched off for a long time from governing the country due to poor health and did not appear before the voters for some time. He only appeared in public at the inauguration ceremony on August 9, which was a greatly abbreviated procedure due to Yeltsin's poor health.

The persons who led and financed Yeltsin's election campaign were appointed to the highest government positions: Anatoly Chubais became the head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Potanin - the first deputy chairman of the government of the Russian Federation, Boris Berezovsky - deputy secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

In August 1996, he sanctioned the Khasavyurt agreements, in October he decided to dismiss A.I. Lebed from all posts. On November 5, 1996, Yeltsin underwent coronary artery bypass surgery, during which V. S. Chernomyrdin acted as President. B. N. Yeltsin returned to work only at the beginning of 1997.

In 1997, B. N. Yeltsin signed a decree on the denomination of the ruble, held talks in Moscow with A. A. Maskhadov and signed an agreement on peace and the basic principles of relations with the Chechen Republic. In March 1998, he announced the resignation of the Chernomyrdin Government and, on the third attempt, under the threat of the dissolution of the State Duma, he nominated S. V. Kiriyenko. After the economic crisis of August 1998, when, two days after Yeltsin's decisive statement on television that there would be no devaluation of the ruble, the ruble was devalued and depreciated by 4 times, he dismissed the Kiriyenko government and offered to return Chernomyrdin. On August 21, 1998, at a meeting of the State Duma, the majority of deputies (248 out of 450) called on Yeltsin to voluntarily resign, only 32 deputies supported him. In September 1998, with the consent of the State Duma, Boris Yeltsin appointed E. M. Primakov the post of Prime Minister.

In May 1999, the State Duma unsuccessfully tried to raise the issue of removing Yeltsin from office (the five charges formulated by the initiators of the impeachment mainly concerned Yeltsin's actions during the first term). Before the impeachment vote, Yeltsin dismissed the Primakov Government, then, with the consent of the State Duma, appointed S. V. Stepashin Chairman of the Government, but in August dismissed him too, submitting for approval the candidacy of V. V. Putin, little known at that time, and declared him his successor. After the aggravation of the situation in Chechnya, the attack on Dagestan, the explosions of residential buildings in Moscow, Buynaksk and Volgodonsk, B.N. Yeltsin, at the suggestion of V.V. Putin, decided to conduct a series of counter-terrorist operations in Chechnya. Putin's popularity soared, and in late 1999 Yeltsin resigned, leaving Putin as acting head of state.

Resignation

December 31, 1999 at 12 noon (which was repeated on the main TV channels a few minutes before midnight, before the New Year's TV address) B. N. Yeltsin announced his resignation from the post of President of the Russian Federation:

Yeltsin explained that he was leaving “not for health reasons, but for the totality of all problems,” and asked for forgiveness from the citizens of Russia.

“After reading the last sentence, he sat motionless for a few more minutes, and tears streamed down his face,” recalls cameraman A. Makarov.

Prime Minister V.V. Putin was appointed Acting President, and immediately after B.N. Yeltsin's announcement of his own resignation, he addressed the citizens of Russia with a New Year's address. On the same day, Vladimir Putin signed a decree guaranteeing Yeltsin protection from prosecution, as well as significant material benefits for him and his family.

Socio-economic policy

Economic reforms in the 1990s

In October 1991, Boris Yeltsin, speaking at the Congress of People's Deputies, announced the beginning of radical economic reforms and until June 1992 he personally headed the Government of the RSFSR he had formed.

One of the first serious economic decisions taken by Boris N. Yeltsin was the decree on freedom of trade. After the collapse of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin embarked on a radical economic reform in the country, often referred to as "shock therapy." On January 2, 1992, a decree on price liberalization in Russia came into force. However, problems with providing the population with food and consumer goods have been replaced by problems associated with hyperinflation. The money savings of citizens have depreciated, and prices and exchange rates have increased several times over several months; It was only in 1993 that hyperinflation was stopped. Other Yeltsin decrees initiated voucher privatization and loans-for-shares auctions, which resulted in the concentration of most of the former state property in the hands of a few people (the so-called "oligarchs"). In addition to hyperinflation, the country faced problems such as a decline in production and non-payments. Thus, non-payment of wages, as well as pensions and other social benefits, has become widespread. The country was in a deep economic crisis. Corruption has increased significantly in all echelons of state power.

Criticism

During his presidency, Boris Yeltsin was subjected to criticism, mainly related to the general negative trends in the country's development in the 1990s: a recession in the economy, a sharp decline in living standards, the state's rejection of social obligations, a decrease in the population and exacerbation of social problems. Most of these processes were launched back in the late 1980s and were caused by the crisis of the Soviet economic system. At the same time, a number of researchers note that with greater competence of the country's leadership, even in an unfavorable environment (falling oil prices), such large-scale economic (Russia's GDP in 1990-98 decreased by 40%) and social shocks could have been avoided.

During the years of Yeltsin's presidency (especially in the second half of the 1990s), he was often accused of actually transferring the main levers of economic management into the hands of a group of influential entrepreneurs (the so-called oligarchs) and the corrupt elite of the state apparatus, and all economic policy was reduced to lobbying the interests of that or another group of individuals, depending on their current influence.

On January 2, 1992, the so-called "shock therapy" began, state price regulation was abolished. Opponents of this reform, before it began, warned that it would lead to large losses in the economy, and that the state was assigned the main role in the recovery of the US economy (after the Great Depression) and the development of the Japanese economy in the post-war period.

By the end of 1992, the differentiation of residents into rich and poor increased sharply. Below the poverty line was 44% of the population.

By 1996, industrial production was reduced by 50%, agricultural - by a third. GDP losses amounted to approximately 40%.

The decline in industrial production was uneven. A relatively favorable situation was observed in the fuel and energy complex, ferrous metallurgy. In other words, the more raw materials the industry had, the smaller the decline in production. Machine building and high-tech industries were the hardest hit. The volume of light industry products decreased by 90%.

In almost all indicators, there was a reduction in tens, hundreds and even thousands of times:

• harvesters - 13 times
• tractors - 14 times
• machine tools - 14 times
• VCRs - 87 times
• tape recorders - 1065 times

Significant changes have taken place in the structure of industry, which are of a negative nature. Thus, they were expressed in a significant increase in the share of extractive industries and a decrease in the share of mechanical engineering and light industry.

In the structure of exports, the share of raw materials increased sharply: if in 1990 it was 60%, then in 1995 it increased to 85%. Export of high-tech products decreased by 7 times.

Agricultural production fell by about a third. If in 1990 the gross grain harvest amounted to 116 million tons, then in 1998 a record low harvest was recorded - less than 48 million tons. The number of cattle fell from 57 million in 1990 to 28 million in 1999, sheep - from 58 to 14 million, respectively.

The budget during Yeltsin's rule was reduced by 13 times. From 25th place in 1990 in terms of living standards, Russia moved to 68th place in 2000.

As a result of the privatization carried out in 1992-1994, a significant part of state property passed into the hands of a narrow circle of people, since many did not understand what to do with vouchers. Enterprises of strategic importance were sold at bargain prices: for example, the ZIL plant was sold for $250 million, while its price, according to experts, was at least a billion dollars.

By 1999, unemployment in Russia was 9 million people.

Russia's external debt has risen sharply. In 1998, it amounted to 146.4% of GDP, which was one of the reasons for the default. The default led to the impoverishment of most of the population, the loss of public confidence in the state, and a drop in living standards. According to experts, the default hit the middle class the hardest.

In 1999, the Duma impeachment commission stated that Yeltsin deliberately pursued a policy aimed at worsening the standard of living of citizens, accusing the president of genocide:

The difficult living conditions of the people of Russia and a significant reduction in their numbers were the result of those measures that were carried out in the period from 1992 under the leadership and with the active participation of President Yeltsin ... There are serious reasons to believe that the reduction in population was also covered by the intention of the president. In an effort to ultimately achieve changes in the country's socio-economic structure and ensure, with the help of the emerging class of private owners, the strengthening of his political power, President Yeltsin deliberately went to worsen the living conditions of Russian citizens, which inevitably entails an increase in the death rate of the population and a reduction in its birth rate ...

At the same time, a member of the commission, deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Viktor Ilyukhin, said: "Yeltsin deliberately did not allow at least a minimal improvement in the material condition of the dying peoples of Russia."

Allegations of destroying the country's defenses

On May 8, 1992, the conversion concept was revised. In the new version of the concept, 60% of defense enterprises switched to self-financing. The conversion began to proceed at a very rapid pace, as a result of which the state defense order decreased by 5 times from 1991 to 1995.

In 1999, A. G. Arbatov, a deputy from the Yabloko faction, stated that since 1992, a sharp reduction in funding for defense spending began, which was not accompanied by transformations in the army in the military-industrial complex. According to Arbatov, until 1997 the military reform was a "profanity", and after the default of 1998, "in real terms, the military budget was cut three times over the period 1998-1999." Arbatov said that Yeltsin was to blame for this: “In no other area has the President concentrated such enormous powers in his hands as in the management of law enforcement agencies. And in none of them the results were not so deplorable. At the same time, Arbatov noted that Yeltsin should bear moral, not legal, responsibility.

Demographic situation

Since 1992, a sharp deterioration in the demographic situation began. Back in 1991, the natural increase was positive, in 1992 it became negative. If in 1992 the natural population decline was 1.5 per thousand, in 1993 it was 5.1 per thousand. In 1994, the depopulation reached the bottom - 6.1 ppm. The number of people under 15 fell from 24.5% in 1989 to 23% in 1995, and people over 65 increased from 18.5% to 20.2% respectively.

One of the factors of population decline was the reduction of social support for the population by the state.

Life expectancy has fallen: from 63 to 56 years for men, from 76 to 70 for women.

Demographic losses (including the unborn) amounted to over 10 million people.

The incidence of syphilis has increased 25 times (moreover, the incidence in the Far East has increased 200 times, among children - 77 times), AIDS - 60 times.

Infant mortality has doubled. The highest infant mortality rate was achieved in 1992 - 19.9 per 1,000 children.

The population of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and the Magadan Region declined most of all, where the population decline in 1991-1994 was 35.1% and 26.5%, respectively.

Foreign policy

Yeltsin's foreign policy was aimed at recognizing Russia as a sovereign state and was aimed, on the one hand, at establishing relations with Western countries and overcoming the consequences of the Cold War, and on the other hand, at building new relations with the former Soviet republics, most of which became members of the CIS.

After the creation of the CIS in 1991, in December 1993 Yeltsin was elected its chairman. During the reign of Boris N. Yeltsin, the summits of the CIS heads of state were held several times a year. In March 1996, Yeltsin, together with the President of Belarus A.G. Lukashenko, the President of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev and the President of Kyrgyzstan A.A. Belarus. This association has changed its name and status several times, but has not yet been fully implemented and exists more “on paper”. In the last years of his reign, he advocated the creation of a single economic space.

At the end of January 1992, Boris Yeltsin came up with disarmament initiatives and announced that henceforth the weapons of the former USSR would not be aimed at US cities.

In 1993, while on a visit to Poland, Boris Yeltsin signed a Polish-Russian declaration, in which he "with understanding" reacted to Poland's decision to join NATO. The declaration stated that such a decision does not run counter to Russia's interests. Similar statements were made by Yeltsin in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Strobe Talbot, First Deputy Secretary of State of the United States in 1994-2001, a direct participant in the negotiations, in his memoirs pointed out that in his foreign policy "Yeltsin agreed to any concessions, the main thing is to be in time between glasses ...". It is B. N. Yeltsin's passion for alcohol that explains B. Clinton's success in achieving his political goals. Here is what Talbot writes about this in his book:

Clinton saw Yeltsin as a political leader who was completely focused on one big task - to drive a stake through the heart of the old Soviet system. Supporting Yeltsin so that he succeeded in this task was, in the eyes of Clinton (and my own), the most important goal, justifying the need to put up with many much less noble, and sometimes just stupid things. In addition, the friendship between Clinton and Yeltsin made it possible for the United States to achieve specific, difficult goals that could not be achieved through any other channel: the elimination of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltics, obtaining Russian consent to NATO expansion, engaging Russia in the peacekeeping mission in the Balkans.

Yeltsin's well-known foreign policy steps were also the following:

• Withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany;
• He opposed the bombing of Yugoslavia, threatened to "redirect" Russian missiles to the United States.

Yeltsin government

Vice President

• Rutskoy, Alexander Vladimirovich - from June 1991 to October 1993

Heads of government

• Silaev, Ivan Stepanovich - from June 1990 to September 1991
• Lobov, Oleg Ivanovich - and. about. Chairman from September to November 1991
• from November 1991 to June 1992, President B. N. Yeltsin himself headed the Government
• Gaidar, Yegor Timurovich about. Chairman from June to December 1992
• Chernomyrdin, Viktor Stepanovich - from December 1992 to March 1998
• Kirienko, Sergey Vladilenovich - from April to August 1998
• Primakov, Evgeny Maksimovich - from September 1998 to April 1999
• Stepashin, Sergey Vadimovich - from May to August 1999
• Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich - from August 1999 to May 2000

Ministers of Foreign Affairs

• Kozyrev, Andrey Vladimirovich - from October 1990 to January 1996
• Primakov, Evgeny Maksimovich - from January 1996 to September 1998
• Ivanov, Igor Sergeevich - from September 1998 to February 2004

Ministers of Defense

• Kobets, Konstantin Ivanovich - from August to September 1991
• Grachev, Pavel Sergeevich - from May 1992 to June 1996
• Rodionov, Igor Nikolaevich - from July 1996 to May 1997
• Sergeev, Igor Dmitrievich - from May 1997 to March 2001

Yeltsin after his resignation

Participation in public events

• January 6, 2000, no longer being President, led the Russian delegation during a visit to Bethlehem, planned during his reign
• May 7, 2000 took part in the inauguration ceremony of the new President V. V. Putin
• In November 2000, he created the Yeltsin Charitable Foundation.
• On June 12, 2001 he was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, I degree
• In 2003, he was present at the opening of a monument to himself on the territory of one of the Issyk-Kul boarding houses. One of the peaks in the Ala-Too mountains, crowning the Kok-Zhaiyk (Zelenaya Polyana) mountain gorge in one of the most beautiful places in Kyrgyzstan, is also named after him. After resigning, he visited his friend, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev, several times on Issyk-Kul Lake.
• In 2004, Yeltsin's name was given to the Kyrgyz-Russian (Slavonic) University, a decree on the founding of which Yeltsin signed in 1992.
• September 7, 2005 - while on vacation in Sardinia, he broke his femur. Delivered to Moscow and operated on. September 17, 2005 was discharged from the hospital.
• February 1, 2006 - was awarded the Church Order of the Holy Right-Believing Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy, I degree (ROC) in connection with the 75th anniversary.
• On August 22, 2006, President of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga awarded Boris Yeltsin with the Order of Three Stars of the 1st degree "for recognizing the independence of Latvia in 1991, as well as for his contribution to the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltic countries and the building of a democratic Russia." At the award ceremony, Boris Yeltsin said that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's resistance to democratic sentiment in the Baltics was "a gross mistake." The award coincided with the 15th anniversary of the State Emergency Committee. Vike-Freiberga stressed that Yeltsin was rewarded for decisive action during the coup, which allowed Latvia to regain its independence. The Russian communities of Latvia, in turn, made a statement that by agreeing to accept the order, Boris Yeltsin thereby "betrayed the Russian inhabitants of Latvia" and "solidified with the undemocratic national policy" of the country.
• On December 2, 2006, he appeared before the public with his wife and granddaughter Maria on tennis, at the Davis Cup final, where Russia defeated Argentina.
• March 25 - April 2, 2007 traveled to Jordan to the holy places. In Jordan, Boris Nikolaevich rested on the Dead Sea, then visited Israel - that place on the Jordan River, where, according to legend, Jesus Christ was baptized.

Opinions and assessments of his position in retirement

According to a book published in 2009 by Mikhail Kasyanov, who was appointed Prime Minister by Putin in May 2000, initially, after his resignation, Yeltsin was keenly interested in what was happening, invited ministers to his dacha, asked how things were going; however, Putin soon "politely asked" Kasyanov to arrange for members of the government to stop disturbing Yeltsin, citing the fact that doctors do not recommend such meetings; in Kasyanov's opinion, in essence, it was an order: "No one else should go to Yeltsin"; in addition, at the insistence of Putin, in 2006 the format of the celebration of Yeltsin's 75th birthday was changed in order to control the contingent of invited persons.

Death and funeral

Boris Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007 at 15:45 Moscow time in the Central Clinical Hospital as a result of cardiac arrest caused by progressive cardiovascular and then multiple organ failure, that is, dysfunction of many internal organs caused by a disease of the cardiovascular system - Sergey Mironov, head of the Medical Center of the Administration of the President of Russia, said in an interview with RIA Novosti. At the same time, in the news television program Vesti, he reported another cause of death for the ex-president: “Yeltsin suffered a rather pronounced catarrhal-viral infection (cold), which hit all organs and systems very hard,” Yeltsin was hospitalized 12 days before his death. However, according to cardiac surgeon Renat Akchurin, who performed the operation on the ex-president, Yeltsin's death "foreshadowed nothing." At the request of Boris Yeltsin's relatives, no autopsy was performed.

B. N. Yeltsin was buried in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was open all night from 24 to 25 April, so that everyone could say goodbye to the ex-president of Russia. " Someday history will give the deceased an impartial assessment", - said the Patriarch of Moscow Alexy II, who did not participate in the funeral service and funeral.

Yeltsin was buried on April 25 at the Novodevichy Cemetery with military honors. The funeral was broadcast live on all state channels.

Boris Yeltsin's assessments

"Yeltsinism"

The period of Yeltsin's rule in the assessments of critics of his regime is often referred to as Yeltsinism. So, Y. Prokofiev and V. Maksimenko give the following definition of the concept of "Yeltsinism":

Personal qualities

Political scientists and the media characterized Yeltsin as a charismatic personality, noted the unusual and unpredictable behavior of his behavior, eccentricity, lust for power, perseverance, and cunning. Opponents argued that Yeltsin was characterized by cruelty, cowardice, vindictiveness, deceit, and a low intellectual and cultural level. The opinion was expressed that Yeltsin was a protege of the West in order to destroy the USSR. In 2007, journalist Mark Simpson wrote in The Guardian: “A perpetually drunk swindler who reduced most of his people to unimaginable poverty while fantastically enriching his clique. A president who robbed an entire generation by stealing their pensions, “let go” of the standard of living into free fall and cut the average life expectancy of Russian men by decades… an era of such widespread corruption and banditry, which have no analogues in history. He not only kowtowed to Western interests, but also presided over the near-final destruction of his country as a political and military force on the world stage. He trampled Russia into the mud so we wouldn't have to do it ourselves.".

The Times journalist Rod Liddle, on the occasion of Yeltsin's death, paid much attention to the former president's addiction to alcohol in his article: “No one else in Russian history has managed to save the state hundreds of liters of formaldehyde by reliably alcoholizing himself not only during his lifetime, but also in power.”.

Public opinion about Yeltsin

According to the data of the Public Opinion Foundation, 41% of Russian residents negatively assess the historical role of Yeltsin, 40% positively (in 2000, immediately after his resignation, this ratio looked more depressing - 67% versus 18%).

According to the Levada Center, 67% in 2000 and 70% in 2006 negatively assessed the results of his reign, 15% and 13%, respectively, positively.

As the British magazine The Economist wrote, “Even before he left office, most Russians across the country, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, felt nothing but contempt for their president - partly due to rampant inflation, unpaid wages, looting of the national wealth by the oligarchs, but even more because of the humiliation to which he, in their opinion, exposed the country with his drunken clown antics.

The TV polemics noted that “under Yeltsin, indeed, a lot of journalists were killed.”

Attitude towards Yeltsin in the West

A number of Western politicians and the media have a very ambiguous assessment of Yeltsin's activities. Yeltsin is credited, in particular, with the final destruction of the USSR, the implementation of economic reforms, and the fight against the communist opposition. Yeltsin is blamed, in particular, for the incompetence of his government, the creation of a class of "oligarchs" by selling off state assets for a pittance, the war in Chechnya, the flourishing of corruption and anarchy, the decline in the standard of living of the population and the decline of the economy, as well as the transfer of power to Vladimir Putin, since According to a number of Western sources, Putin's rule is "less democratic" and represents a "return to authoritarianism."

Former US President Bill Clinton believed that Yeltsin “I did a lot to change the world. Thanks to him, the world has changed for the better in many ways.”. Clinton gives high marks to Yeltsin's ability to make "certain compromises." According to Clinton, under Yeltsin “Democratic pluralism was truly developing in Russia, with a free press and an active civil society”. Clinton recalled that in 2000 he expressed his doubts about Putin to Yeltsin: Clinton was not sure that Putin was "as committed to the principles of democracy and ready to adhere to them in the same way as Yeltsin."

The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial: “Yeltsin's worst enemy was himself. Drunken antics not only undermined his health, but also became symptoms of the incompetence of the Kremlin authorities. In 1992, he briefly dabbled in the limited market reforms that gave capitalism a bad name in Russia. He created "oligarchs" through a "loans-for-shares" scheme (effectively selling off the best assets to "his people" for a pittance) and undertaking a goofy orchestrated privatization pushed hard by his advisers who enriched themselves on it. He failed to strengthen political institutions and the rule of law. The Chechen war, which began in 1994, was a military and political fiasco. Russia has never - neither before nor since - known such freedom as in the Yeltsin 1990s. Putin, according to the publication, eliminated the best achievements of Yeltsin.

The Washington Post editorial stated: “This man's contribution to history is mixed, but his steps in defense of freedom will not be erased from people's memory. Often ill, often appearing to be tipsy, he [Yeltsin] allowed corruption and anarchy to flourish inside and outside state structures. The Russians felt as a shame his stupid antics. In the next seven years, Putin reversed most of the liberal reforms his predecessor had fought for.

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl called Yeltsin "a great statesman" and "a true friend of the Germans." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Yeltsin "was a great personality in Russian and international politics, a courageous fighter for democracy and a true friend of Germany."

Journalist Mark Simpson wrote in The Guardian: “If Yeltsin, having successfully overthrown the communist regime, instead of alcoholic chaos and impotence, erected on its ruins a strong Russia that would defend its own interests and be an influential force on the world stage, his reputation in the West would be completely different and some of them would fall upon him those who now glorify him. He would be hated almost as much as… Putin!”.

The editor of The Nation magazine (en: The Nation) Katrina vanden Heuvel (en: Katrina vanden Heuvel) disagrees with the opinion about the democratic nature of Yeltsin's rule. According to her, “Yeltsin’s anti-democratic policies after August 1991 polarized, poisoned and impoverished this country, laying the foundation for what is happening there today, although the responsibility for this lies solely with the current Russian President Vladimir Putin”. Havel believes that the actions of Yeltsin and a small group of his like-minded people to liquidate the USSR "without consultation with parliament" were "neither legal nor democratic." The "shock therapy" carried out with the participation of American economists, according to her, led to the fact that the population lost their savings, and about half of Russians fell below the poverty line. Havel recalls the shooting down by tanks of a democratically elected parliament, when hundreds of people were killed and injured. According to her, representatives of the US administration then stated that they "would support these actions of Yeltsin, even if they were even more violent". The journalist sharply criticizes the war started in Chechnya, the presidential elections of 1996 (accompanied, according to her, by falsifications and manipulations, and financed by oligarchs who received loans-for-shares auctions in return). As Havel summed up, Yeltsin's rule, in the opinion of millions of Russians, brought the country to the brink of death, and not to the path of democracy. Russia experienced the worst industrial depression in the world in the 20th century. As one of the famous American Sovietologists Peter Reddway wrote in collaboration with Dmitry Glinsky, "for the first time in modern world history, one of the leading industrialized countries with a highly educated society has eliminated the results of several decades of economic development". Havel believes that during the reforms, the American press mostly distorted the picture of the real situation in Russia.

An editorial in The Guardian on the occasion of Yeltsin's death noted: “But if Yeltsin considered himself the founding father of post-communist Russia, Thomas Jefferson did not work out of him. The meeting, where the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus worked on a plan for the collapse of the Union, ended in a drunken quarrel. Russia's democratic dawn lasted only two years, until the new president ordered tanks to fire on the very same parliament that had helped him end Soviet power. Blood began to be shed in the name of liberal democracy, which jarred some democrats. Yeltsin abandoned state price subsidies, taking it as a dogma, and as a result, the inflation rate jumped to 2000%. It was called "shock therapy", but there was too much shock and too little therapy. Millions of people found their savings vanished overnight, while the president's family and inner circle amassed huge personal fortunes that they still own to this day. Yeltsin's market reforms led to a more significant decline in industrial production than the invasion of the Nazi troops in 1941 ... Yeltsin turned out to be a more effective destroyer of the USSR than a builder of Russian democracy ".

Family

Boris Yeltsin was married, had two daughters, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Wife - Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina (Girina) (in baptism - Anastasia). Daughters - Elena Okulova and Tatyana Dyachenko.

perpetuation of memory

• On April 8, 2008, the main street of the business center of Yekaterinburg City, January 9th Street in Yekaterinburg, was renamed Boris Yeltsin Street.
• On April 23, 2008, a solemn ceremony of unveiling the monument to Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, made by the famous sculptor Georgy Frangulyan, took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery. The memorial is a wide tombstone, made in the colors of the Russian flag - white marble, blue Byzantine mosaics and red porphyry. An Orthodox cross is engraved on the paving stones under the tricolor. The ceremony was attended by Boris Yeltsin's family, including Naina Iosifovna's widow, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei Sobyanin, members of the government, friends, colleagues and people who worked with the first President of the Russian Federation.
• April 23, 2008 Ural State Technical University - UPI was named after Boris Yeltsin.
• On the anniversary of Yeltsin's death in his native village of Butka, a memorial plaque was installed on the wall of the house built by the father of the first president of Russia and one of the streets was renamed "Yeltsin Street".
• In May 2009, the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library was opened in St. Petersburg.
• In the city of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz-Russian (Slavonic) University was named after B.N. Yeltsin during his lifetime.
• On February 1, 2011, a monument to Boris Yeltsin, the work of architect Georgy Frangulyan, was opened in Yekaterinburg, near the future presidential center in Demidov Plaza

Unusual cases from the life of Yeltsin

• During the baptism, the drunken priest who baptized Boris almost drowned him in the font, after which they pumped him out and decided to name him Boris as strong and tenacious enough.
• Yeltsin himself explained the absence of two fingers on his hand as follows: as a high school student, he stole a grenade from an armory and, wanting to know how it works, took it to the forest, put it on a stone and hit it with a hammer, forgetting to pull out the fuse, as a result of which injured his hand and was left without two fingers. The plausibility of this explanation was often subject to reasonable doubts, for example, S. G. Kara-Murza, in the book “Soviet Civilization” wrote: “Perhaps this story should be understood as an allegory. There are too many oddities: it is difficult to saw through the grate while the sentry walks around the church, grenades are not stored with fuses, a grenade that explodes in the hands tears off not only two fingers, but something else.
• While studying at the institute, he made a two-month trip around the country, moving on the roofs and footboards of wagons, got into an unpleasant story, playing “borax” with criminals.
• According to the story of Yeltsin himself, while working as a machinist on a BKSM-5 tower crane, he negligently forgot to fix the crane after a working day, at night he discovered that he was moving, climbed into the control cabin and stopped the crane at the risk of his life.
• According to the story of Yeltsin himself, when he worked as a foreman at a construction site, criminals were given to him as subordinates. He refused to close their outfits for unfinished work, after which one of the criminals ambushed him with an ax and demanded to close the outfits, threatening to kill him if he refused, to which Yeltsin answered him: “Get out!”, and the criminal had no choice but to throw an ax and follow in the direction indicated by Yeltsin.
• When Yeltsin worked as the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU, during a working trip around the region on the eve of November 7, Yeltsin and his entourage got lost on the road, broke the car and could not fix it, went across the field to the village and there, despite the fact that all the inhabitants the villages were in a drunken state, they found a tractor on which they were able to return to the road, and a telephone in the administrative building, by which Yeltsin contacted the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate and asked to send a helicopter for him in order to catch up to the podium during a festive demonstration in honor of the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolutions.
• On September 28, 1989, Yeltsin fell into the water from a bridge near a government dacha. According to the stories of his chief bodyguard Korzhakov, Yeltsin told him that unknown people put a bag over his head and threw him off the bridge. However, an official investigation, organized on the initiative of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, did not confirm the fact of the attack. What actually happened is still unknown. For a long time there were rumors about revenge on Yeltsin by the party elite and an attempt to discredit him.
• At the end of 1989, Yeltsin traveled around the United States of America with performances. Reprints appeared in Soviet newspapers from foreign ones that Yeltsin was drunk, and his poorly coordinated movements were shown on television (which, however, could be the result of film editing). Yeltsin himself explained his inadequate state by the action of sleeping pills, which he took, struggling with overexertion and insomnia.
• In the spring of 1990, Yeltsin nearly died while in Spain. In a small plane in which he flew from Córdoba to Barcelona, ​​the entire power supply system went out. With great difficulty, the pilots landed the aircraft at an intermediate airfield, and during landing the aircraft received a severe blow. As a result, one of Yeltsin's intervertebral discs was crushed, fragments pinched a nerve. Spanish doctors performed a complex, hours-long operation, which turned out to be successful, and after three days Yeltsin began to walk. Barcelona residents stood for hours at the door of the hospital, bringing flowers, waiting for Yeltsin to be taken out for a walk. However, no one from the USSR Embassy and other Soviet organizations visited him.
• According to numerous testimonies of people who worked with Yeltsin, he abused alcohol. When he asked the guards to run for vodka, they went to Korzhakov, who allegedly secretly diluted the vodka and sealed the bottle using an apparatus that was confiscated from counterfeit vodka dealers and transferred to the police museum, and later to Korzhakov. After a heart operation, doctors forbade Yeltsin to drink a lot.
• After drinking alcohol at official receptions during his visits, Yeltsin began to behave strangely - in Germany he tried to conduct an orchestra, and during the flight from the USA to Moscow he felt unwell and could not get off the plane for the planned negotiations with the Prime Minister of Ireland at Shannon Airport, which his security service explained "a slight malaise."
• Once, as president, during an official ceremony, he pinched one of the Kremlin stenographers on the side, this episode was shown on television.

Awards and titles

Awards of Russia and the USSR:

• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st class (June 12, 2001) - for a particularly outstanding contribution to the formation and development of Russian statehood
• Order of Lenin (January 1981) - for services to the Communist Party and the Soviet state and in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of his birth
• 2 orders of the Red Banner of Labor:

In August 1971 - for merits in the implementation of the five-year plan

In January 1974 - for the successes achieved in the construction of the first stage of the cold rolling shop of the Verkh-Isetsky Metallurgical Plant

• Order of the Badge of Honor (1966) - for the success achieved in fulfilling the tasks of the seven-year plan for the construction
• Medal "In memory of the 1000th anniversary of Kazan" (2006)
• Medal "For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin ”(November 1969)
• Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (April 1975)
• Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (January 1978)
• VDNH gold medal (October 1981)

Foreign awards:

• Order of Francysk Skaryna (Belarus, December 31, 1999) - for a great personal contribution to the development and strengthening of Belarusian-Russian cooperation
• Order of the Golden Eagle (Kazakhstan, 1997)
• Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 1st class (Ukraine, January 22, 2000) - for a significant personal contribution to the development of Ukrainian-Russian cooperation
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic decorated with a large ribbon (Italy, 1991)
• Order of the Three Stars, 1st class (Latvia, 2006)
• Order "Bethlehem-2000" (Palestinian Autonomy, 2000)
• Knight Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor (France, ???)
• Order of Good Hope, 1st class (South Africa, 1999)
• January 13 Memorial Medal (Lithuania, January 9, 1992)
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Cross of Vytis (Lithuania, June 10, 2011, posthumously)
• Order "For Personal Courage" (PMR, October 18, 2001)[

Departmental awards:

• Commemorative medal of A. M. Gorchakov (Russian Foreign Ministry, 1998)
• Golden Olympic Order (IOC, 1993)

Church awards:

• Order of the Holy Right-Believing Grand Duke Demetrius of the Don, I degree (ROC, 2006)
• Knight of the Chain of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher (Jerusalem Orthodox Patriarchate, 2000)

Ranks:

• Honorary Citizen of the Sverdlovsk Region (2010, posthumously)
• Honorary citizen of Kazan (2005)
• Honorary Citizen of the Samara Region (2006)
• Honorary Citizen of Yerevan (Armenia) (2002)
• Honorary citizen of Turkmenistan

Books by B. N. Yeltsin

• "Confession on a given topic" (Moscow. PIK Publishing House, 1990) is a small book that intertwines an autobiography, a political creed and a story about Yeltsin's election campaign in the elections of people's deputies.
• "Notes of the President" (1994) - a book written by the current president, it tells about such events of 1990-93 as presidential elections, the August putsch (GKChP), the collapse of the USSR, the beginning of economic reforms, the constitutional crisis of 1992-93, the events of September 21 - October 4, 1993 (dissolution of the Supreme Council).
• "Presidential Marathon" (2000) - A book released shortly after the resignation, it tells about the second presidential election and the second presidential term.

1931 in the Urals, in the village of Butka. Boris's parents are once prosperous and dispossessed by Soviet power peasants. Mom - Claudia Vasilievna - a dressmaker. Father - Nikolai Ignatievich - a builder.

My father spent several years in repression. Perhaps this hardened his character. Boris's main memory of his father for the rest of his life will be the fear of being punished for any slightest offense. A despotic, imperious, mentally disturbed father kept the whole family in fear - his mother and two sons. After the return of his father from exile, another boy, Mikhail, was born in the family. Particularly violent fits of rage occurred with the elder Yeltsin in a drunken state. The boy resignedly and pliantly perceived these inhuman "measures of education." He so often felt his father's fist on himself that he did not think that it could be somehow different. He, clenching his teeth, stoically, without tears or screams, endured all bullying. This further pulverized the drunken "educator". This continued until Boris graduated from school.

Little Yeltsin

The boy did well at school. No triples can be found in the surviving grade book - only fours and fives. It was not academic performance that brought difficulties to teachers, but the character of the future president. He was never distinguished by exemplary behavior - he was pugnacious, assertive, unstoppable. From childhood, his leadership qualities manifested themselves - in all schools (and several of them had to be changed), Yeltsin was elected head of the class. The craving for coups began from the school bench. He declared “war” on the class teacher, who raised her hand against the children and forced them to work in her garden. At the suggestion of Boris, the children jumped out from the second floor before the start of the hated teacher's lesson, laid the gramophone needles with their points up on the teacher's chair.

Yeltsin as a child

Entertainment outside of school was on the verge of an emergency. Boris was a regular participant in the "wall to wall to the first blood." Beating his opponents with hatred, the boy apparently took out all the anger he had accumulated against his despot father. For the rest of his life, the face of the future politician retained the memory of this completely unchildish fun in the form of a "boxing nose", as he himself called it. In one of the fights, in which about 60-100 boys participated, he received a shaft on the bridge of his nose. The boy lost consciousness, he was somehow dragged to the house. Naturally, the punishment from the father was inevitable, even despite the condition of the teenager.

In the spring flood on the Zaryanka River, the children arranged the most dangerous game - they floated the wood onto the water. Whoever crosses the river faster on moving logs is the winner.

Yeltsin teenager

Passion for knowledge deprived the boy of two fingers of his left hand. And all because the boy just wanted to know what was inside the grenade. But the loss of fingers is the smallest loss - since, to satisfy their curiosity, these same grenades were obtained in a church guarded by an armed guard who had a command - to shoot anyone to kill.

Yeltsin could not have reached such high heights due to another stupidity, when he was on the verge of death. Boris, together with a classmate, without the help of adults, decided to heat the bath in a black way. What they did wrong there is unknown. But as a result, Boris lost consciousness. His friend managed to crawl to the house and inform his parents about what had happened. After that, he, too, immediately turned off.

It was as if fate was guarding him all the time for something important: he did not burn in the fire, and did not drown in the water.

The future president also rebelled against social injustice. According to the recollections of his mother, once entering the store, he realized that not everyone lives as poorly as they do. Having made his way to the department for special services, in which only the party elite was allowed to buy goods, he saw as many dishes as a schoolboy could not even dream of - stewed meat, cheese, various sausages. Upon learning that this was only for executives, the boy firmly decided and told his mother: "I will be the boss." In the future, Boris Nikolayevich will act as an irreconcilable fighter with special services and special rations.

Youth of the future politician

Boris put an end to his father's despotism at the age of 14. After graduation from the 7th grade of the school, a solemn event was held for the presentation of certificates. The future politician asked for the floor, and, of course, they gave it to him, anticipating a speech of thanks. The graduate really thanked the good teachers who invested in him and his comrades a thirst for learning and reading. And then he was inexorable to his class teacher - in front of everyone, he told about her assault on children, about humiliating the dignity of boys and girls, about trying to make the whole class scour the area in search of waste for her pigs. The effect was like an exploding grenade. The next day, Nikolai Ignatievich was summoned to the director and informed that his son had been deprived of his certificate, and instead he was given a "wolf ticket" - an ordinary white sheet of paper with a note that the student had attended a course of a 7-year school. It is impossible to enter the 8th grade with this “document” in any educational institution in the country.

Boris Yeltsin with family

Arriving home, the father had already raised his hand to, as usual, show Boris who is the boss here and convince the young man of his failure. But the teenager stopped the despot and said: "That's enough - now I will educate myself myself." The father was dumbfounded, but this was the end of the suppression of the child's personality, his creative and intellectual potential through endless standing in the corner all night long and unbearable pain from being hit by a belt. The boy persevered and learned a lesson for life - he learned to wait, gritting his teeth, enduring pain and humiliation, in order to emerge victorious later. It was this quality of the future "leader" that led to the abolition of the CPSU in 1991, which treated Yeltsin impartially in 1987.

Boris was not going to fold his hands after receiving the “wolf ticket”. He went around all the local and district pedagogical instances, and eventually got a commission to be assembled to review the professionalism of his former class teacher. As a result, the German woman was removed from office, and the persistent guy was given a certificate of completion of the seven-year plan. Although in German there was the only three among all the fours and fives. He did not want to return to his former school, so he entered the Pushkin School. There, the teenager's relationship was well developed with everyone - students, teachers, director.

Tempered the fighting character of the future president and sports. He tried himself wherever a boy in the outback could do it - in athletics, skiing, wrestling, boxing, decathlon, gymnastics. But it was volleyball that remained the love of my life. The game captivated Boris immediately and forever. Despite the hand injury, as a young man, Yeltsin reached significant heights. Studying in the senior classes of the new school, he was a member of the national team of his city, was the champion of the city in other sports. As a result, he became a master of sports and at one time even coached the women's volleyball team.

Volleyball and Yeltsin

The hike after graduating from the 9th grade of the school again became a test that put the life of Yeltsin and all his classmates in question. During the campaign, the guys picked up the most severe form of typhoid fever. Due to the lack of medicines, everyone spent a long time in the hospital and were forced to miss the entire academic year and, moreover, graduation year. Everyone except Boris. From the beginning of the third quarter, the young man began to "bite" into the material of the 10th grade on his own. For days on end I made up for lost knowledge. When the time came for the final exams, the guy who missed a whole year of study was not allowed to take them. Along the beaten path in the past, they began to walk around the executive committees, city departments, and city committees. Here, Yeltsin's sporting achievements already affected - he was allowed to take exams externally. What he did, and I must say, very successfully - two fours, and the rest - fives.

Yeltsin's matriculation certificate

Studying at the institute and student life

At first, the main task of entering a university was to change the place of residence, leaving the despotic drinking father and poverty. The choice was made in favor of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. In 1950, the young man entered the Faculty of Civil Engineering. He himself explained his choice by the experience of the workers. His father also graduated from construction courses and until the end of his life was a foreman at the construction site. But the choice in favor of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, instead of the industrial and military faculty, which was more prestigious at that time, can be explained in another way. Kinship with dispossessed peasants, repressed laborers, the fact of issuing a "wolf ticket", a violent freedom-loving disposition, the fact of stealing ammunition from a guarded warehouse - all this made B. Yeltsin's admission to a military university unrealistic. Medical indicators also contributed to this - the absence of fingers on the hand is impossible for a future reserve officer.

At the institute, Yeltsin met his future wife, Naina Girina. It is interesting that at birth the girl had the name Anastasia, but at a conscious age (25 years old), the girl officially changed it to the name Naina - this is how her household called her.

In 1955, the future president successfully graduated from a higher educational institution. He qualified as a Civil Engineer with a degree in Civil and Industrial Engineering. The thesis defense was on the topic "Television tower".

Start of a career in manufacturing

After receiving his diploma, Yeltsin's career developed rapidly:

• 1955 - a worker in a construction trust, joining the CPSU;
• 1956 - chief engineer of the House-Building Plant;
• 1959 - director of the same plant;
• 1963 - enrollment in the Kirov District Committee of the CPSU, a little later in the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee;
• 1975 - Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU;
• 1976 - the chief secretary of this committee (that is, in fact, the head of the Sverdlovsk region).

Ya.P. Ryabov, who held the post of chief secretary before Yeltsin and patronized the young politician, characterized him as a very ambitious, power-hungry careerist. But at the same time, he noted that Boris Nikolayevich carried out any assignment quickly and efficiently. During the tenure of the future president in leadership positions in the Sverdlovsk region, many positive things were achieved: in the field of food security - the abolition of coupons for milk and some other products, the opening of new factories and poultry farms; in the construction industry - the launch of the construction of the Sverdlovsk metro, cultural and sports complexes, the experimental settlements of Patrushi and Baltym, a new highway connecting Sverdlovsk with the northern centers of the region, a twenty-three-story (the tallest building in the city) of the regional committee of the CPSU, which received the popular name "White House" and " Wisdom tooth". Some buildings, for example, the Baltym cultural and sports complex, were recognized as having no analogues.

After graduating from the institute in 1956, Yeltsin married his Naina. She worked as a project manager at the Vodokanal Institute. In 1957, the couple had a daughter, Elena, and after another 3 years, Tatyana.

The politician has repeatedly noted his tender attitude towards his wife, always emphasizing the importance of the support and care of Naina Iosifovna. But surrounded by the future president, everyone knew that Naina Yeltsina was not only the spiritual support of Boris Nikolaevich, but also had a significant impact on the personnel policy of the state's leadership.

The heyday of a political career

In 1985, when Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the party, on the recommendation of Ligachev, Yeltsin was appointed to the post of secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for construction issues. After moving to Moscow, the politician begins large-scale purges: he dismisses many managers, personally checks the work of warehouses and shops, and often gets to his destination by public transport. Yeltsin introduces a ban on the demolition of historical buildings, introduces the celebration of the City Day, food fairs.

Yeltsin's workdays

One of the key moments of the political activity of the Sverdlovite was his revealing speech at the plenum of the party. He blamed the emergence of a cult of personality on Gorbachev, the slow pace of perestroika, and the inconsistency of many politicians with their positions, for example, Yegor Ligachev. As a result, he asked to be excluded from the list of candidates for the CPSU Politburo. In response, a flurry of counter criticism followed. Under political pressure, Yeltsin was forced to back down and ask for the return of his post in a personal letter to Gorbachev. A few days later, the politician was hospitalized with a heart attack. Many are inclined to believe that it was a suicide attempt or its falsification. But a few days later, Boris Nikolayevich participated in a meeting of the party, at which he was deprived of the post of first secretary of the Moscow City Committee.

Yeltsin's personality has always been in sight. After a resonant speech at the plenum, which could have crossed out the entire career of a politician, the incident that happened to Yeltsin as early as 1989 was discussed for a long time. Then he served as a people's deputy in Moscow. During several meetings of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the fall of a politician from a 25-meter bridge was discussed. He claimed that this was done by his political opponents. Yeltsin arrived in the Moscow region to his friend and let the driver go for a short walk on foot. Many, including Gorbachev, questioned this scenario. There were even versions that Boris Nikolaevich went to his mistress, who doused him with water. Of the most likely versions, Yeltsin met with someone at night, but accidentally landed in a ditch. According to the testimony of the policemen, whom he reached first of all, all the clothes of the politician were covered in dirt.

In 1990, Boris Nikolaevich became the head of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. His election to this position was facilitated by the signing of the Declaration on State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. This document put Russian laws above Soviet ones. This happened on June 12 - the day when the national holiday of Russia is now celebrated. At the 28th (last) Congress of the CPSU at the end of 1990, the politician announced his withdrawal from the party.

Yeltsin's first inauguration, 1991

On June 12, 1991, elections were held. The non-party Yeltsin was opposed by V. Zhirinovsky (LDPSS) and N. Ryzhkov (CPSU). The victory was won by Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, who became the first president of the RSFSR.

Documentary film about the first president of Russia: “Boris Yeltsin. You can't retreat"

"B.N." Documentary by Nikolai Svanidze

Documentary: “Boris Yeltsin. Life and destiny.