Boris Yeltsin

Political Leader / President of Russia

The Energizer Bunny of Russian politics, Boris Yeltsin was an engineer and minor Communist Party official of the U.S.S.R. before winning the Russian presidency by popular vote in 1989. As president he was a key bridge figure between old-style Soviet Communism and the Russia of the 21st century. Rough-edged, blustery and jovial, Yeltsin was a populist leader late in the 1980s. Eager to speed up reforms, he opposed the policies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, yet was instrumental in defeating a coup against Gorbachev in 1991. Yeltsin was himself elected president of the Russian Federation in 1991, and after the Soviet Union collapsed he remained in power. Despite political setbacks, rumors of heavy drinking and at least two heart attacks, he was re-elected to office in 1996. He retired abruptly on 31 December 1999, saying he had decided "Russia must enter the new millennium with new politicians." His replacement was Vladimir Putin.

Extra credit: As a boy, Yeltsin blew off two fingers of his left hand while playing with a live grenade... His home village of Butka is also called Butko; both are English translations from the Cyrillic. Butka is in the Sverdlovsk region, and is located near the city of Yekaterinburg, which also was called Sverdlovsk from 1924-1991. After the fall of the Soviet Union the city name changed back to Yekaterinburg, but the region continues to be known as Sverdlovsk. By coincidence, Yekaterinburg is where Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed in 1918.

Boris Yeltsin joins Daryl Hannah and Telly Savalas in our loop on Celebs Missing Fingers... Other world leaders of Yeltsin's era include Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac.