JULY 30, 1991: MARCHING TO THE END OF THE SOVIET UNION, TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO

A HANDSHAKE 

ON THE WAY TO 

THE END OF 

THE SOVIET UNION 

TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO 

U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH MEETS 

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN 

IN YELTSIN'S NEW KREMLIN OFFICE 

July 30, 1991 

Story coming in RUSSIA REDUX, Ch. 4 

"Russia Takes a President; the U.S. Takes Notice" 

BORIS YELTSIN INAUGURATED AS RUSSIA'S FIRST POPULARLY ELECTED PRESIDENT, TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO TODAY

THE FIRST INAUGURATION  

OF THE FIRST 

POPULARLY ELECTED 

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT  

July 10, 1991 

BORIS YELTSIN, 

to the left of the photograph, 

with the head of 

the Russian parliament, 

RUSLAN KHASBULATOV, 

to his right, 

stands during the ceremony 

of his first inauguration 

the personalized invitation 

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 

KLAVDIA YELTSIN (THE MOTHER OF BORIS YELTSIN) DIED TWENTY YEARS AGO

KLAVDIA YELTSIN

THE MOTHER 

OF BORIS YELTSIN 

d. March 21, 1993 (85 y. o.) 

AT HOME IN SVERDLOVSK

(YEKATERINBURG), RUSSIA (USSR) 1991

HER SON, BORIS YELTSIN, WAS

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA