Where is boris yeltsin now

Yeltsin and I talked a lot about possible successors. At one point we discussed Putin. I think you should consider him. It's clear from the way he does his job that he's ready for more difficult tasks.

The fact that he was ex-KGB meant nothing. Putin had shown himself to be a liberal and a democrat, who wanted to continue market reforms. Mr Yeltsin was not due to leave office for another year, but in December he took the surprise decision to go early.

He asked me to be present, and his new chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin. He told Putin that he wouldn't hang around until July. He'd resign on 31 December. Yeltsin didn't even tell his wife. Mr Yumashev was entrusted with writing Yeltsin's resignation speech. It was clear the text would go down in history. The message was important. That's why I wrote the famous line 'Forgive me'. Yeltsin had to speak about this. Except me, who'd written the speech.

People burst into tears. It was an emotional moment. There were still four hours before the official announcement. So, all the people in the room were locked in. They weren't allowed to leave. I took the tape and drove to the TV station.

In September , just two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall and amid the final years of the Soviet Union, a member of the Soviet Parliament paid a visit to a grocery store in the Clear Lake area. His name: Boris Yeltsin. Yes, that Boris Yeltsin. He'd been the mayor of Moscow, and two years later, he'd play a significant role in the end of communism in Russia.

He'd also later serve as that nation's first post-Soviet president. But on Sept. So, during his visit to NASA, he asked to check out a local grocery store. He was the manager on duty that day. Yirga told Houston Matters producer Michael Hagerty in the audio above it was just an ordinary Saturday — until the phone rang in the courtesy booth. He says the store only had a minute warning that he was coming.

Under his watch, a stock exchange, commodities exchanges and private banks all came into being. But although a select few oligarchs became shockingly wealthy, many Russians lapsed deeper into poverty due to rampant inflation and the rising cost of living. Moreover, Yeltsin began treating himself to some of the perks, such as chauffeured limousines, that he had previously criticized.

As president, Yeltsin broke from his Soviet predecessors by generally supporting freedom of the press, permitting public criticism and letting Western popular culture seep into the country. He also agreed to nuclear arms reductions and brought home soldiers from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics.

Nonetheless, he did not completely disavow military action. After surviving impeachment proceedings, Yeltsin disbanded the communist-dominated parliament in September and called for elections to a new legislature. He then resolved the ensuing standoff by ordering tanks to shell the parliamentary building. The following year Yeltsin sent troops into the breakaway republic of Chechnya, an action that left roughly 80, people dead—the majority of them civilians. Though the fighting ceased in August , it picked back up again in and lasted most of the next decade.

Health problems, some of them caused by heavy drinking, eventually began to take their toll on Yeltsin. In alone he had at least three heart attacks. Yet he decided to run for president anyway in , winning a second term and then undergoing quintuple bypass surgery. Near the end of his time in office, he survived another round of impeachment proceedings and went through a string of prime ministers. In August the ruble collapsed and Russia defaulted on its treasury bills.

Soon after, the economy finally turned around with the help of rising oil prices. He then handed off power to Vladimir Putin , his chosen successor and the last of his prime ministers, who granted him immunity from prosecution. Yeltsin died on April 23, , following a quiet retirement during which Putin recentralized authority and restricted dissent. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.

After overthrowing the centuries-old Romanov monarchy, Russia emerged from a civil war in as the newly formed Soviet Union.