Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No one had resigned from the Politburo before...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionWorld Leader
Date of Birth1 February 1931
CityButka, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
I swear, in exercising my authorities as president of the Russian Federation, to respect and uphold the rights and freedoms of the individual and the citizen.
It is unethical to name names beforehand -- we will talk to everyone first...This is difficult but reliable.
It is not right for us to think about successors. Kings have successors but we don't. It is the people that choose.
I, of course, will fight so that, literally, in the course of the week he will be confirmed as prime minister,
We must gradually arrange things to get rid of foreign (aid) injections,
We believe that gradually, as we have planned, without hurry, this problem can be overcome,
Today, a day of mourning, a new disaster hit us, ... Terrorism has declared war on us ... Terrorists are trying to scare the Russian people. They are trying to demoralize the state.
You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.
There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.
The Soviet Union could not exist without the image of the empire. The image of the empire could not exist without the image of force. The USSR ended the moment the first hammer pounded the Berlin Wall.
A politician must have some scruples, a certain decency; he cannot smear himself in the mud for the sake of a high ideal.
Europe has found itself confronted with fresh challenges - challenges of a global character, the nature of which is directly connected with changes in the international climate and the difficulties of seeking new models for co-operation
I ask you to forgive me for not fulfilling some hopes of those people who believed that we would be able to jump from the totalitarian past into a bright, rich and civilized future in one go.
International terrorism is throwing down a challenge, and not just to Russia.