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
