Wednesday, May 29, 2013

BORIS YELTSIN BECOMES HEAD OF THE RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO

BORIS YELTSIN 
ELECTED CHAIR OF 
THE RUSSIAN CONGRESS 
OF PEOPLE'S DEPUTIES 
May 29, 1990 


BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH YELTSIN 
CHAIRING THE 
RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF 
PEOPLE'S DEPUTIES 

Elected President of Russia 
the following year 

"Mikhail Gorbachev was literally up in the air at the moment of the election, on a ten-hour flight to Canada for a first-ever visit by a top Soviet leader.  Back in Moscow, '[w]hen the final count was announced...to the tense and excited gathering at the Grand Kremlin Palace, deputies got to their feet to give [Yeltsin] a standing ovation.'  Or rather, half of them did.  Outside hundreds of his supporters were waiting, 'waving red-white-and-blue prerevolutionary Russian flags and carrying pictures' of Yeltsin."  -- from Chapter Six of SIC TRANSIT, by Gwendolyn Stewart