Boris Yeltsin

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Boris Yeltsin, played by Slobodan Milosevic.

Boris Nikolayevich "Catastroika" Yeltsin was the first President of Russia (1991-1999) and the last to be democratically chosen. Known for hard-drinking, Yeltsin is perhaps best remembered as being the guy who did the Twist in 1996. Yeltsin also accomplished a breathtaking goal, being more hated than the United States in Russia.[1]

In 1991, when the Soviet Union fell, Yeltsin called to end communism. Yeltsin's period is best remembered as proof Russians are doomed eternally. Communist, capitalist, anarchist, or autocrat, they'll never get it right. Either we have this useless drunk who burns down your house during a vodka high, a paranoid tyrant who burns down your neighborhood for opposing him, or a plutocratic strongman who burns down your house for glory and Little Dmitri who burns down your house for Putin. Either way you'll need good homeowners insurance if you live in Russia. (Still, at least Yeltsin didn't light the fire on purpose.)

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[edit] Yeltsin's term

It was pretty much chaos. Instead of introducing gradual privatization,[2] Yeltsin handed the country over to "shock therapy" economics which allowed the country to be looted by bankers while people starved.[3][4] This especially upset communists in Siberia who felt betrayed by Yeltsin regardless of the fact that they demanded he leave office long before he took office. Still, Yeltsin's drinking provided Russians who could still afford to steal a television set nonstop entertainment.

In a 1995 summit with President Bill Clinton, Yeltsin said "you are the disaster" and they both laughed hard despite nobody knowing what was so funny.[5] Overall, American-Russian relations hit a height in peace during the Yeltsin-Clinton years. Don't expect it to happen again.

Yeltsin had a great human rights record, if you exclude the war in Chechnya and dissolving Parliament in 1993 for voting against his bills. Not bad for a Russian though; he didn't kill journalists.

Eventually Yeltsin was more or less universally despised by Russians and he caved to their cries to resign December 31, 1999; this is perhaps the single greatest New Year's present and the single greatest way to begin the new millennium for all of Russia. While nobody will go quite far enough to ask Yelstin back, they're not exactly happy with Putin's very existence.[6]

[edit] Legacy

Communists have become grateful toward Yeltsin for re-dismantling their country enough to give them a mandate to return to power. Bitter commies still dislike him though, and the word "Yeltsin" has replaced the word "American" as the king of Russian swear words.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Freeland, Chrystia. Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism. 2000, Crown Business. ISBN 0-812-93215-3

[edit] Footnotes

  1. 2% approval rating. It's actually surprising that he managed to die from natural causes.
  2. Compare to, say, Poland...
  3. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
  4. When even The Economist calls your shift to capitalism "badly practiced", you probably fucked something up.
  5. Must be a political thing.
  6. Triesman, Daniel. "Presidential Popularity in a Young Democracy: Russia under Yeltsin and Putin." UCLA Division of Social Sciences, Nov. 2009. Web. 6 June 2013
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