World Citizen Blog

First President of Russian Federation - Boris Yeltsin died

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We don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. Freedom is like that. It’s like air. When you have it, you don’t notice it.

Boris Yeltsin, 1995

The Ceremony inside Kremlin Castle

The First President of Russia has died on April, 23 2007 from a lengthy heart disease.

In 1930, Ignaty Yeltsin, a well-off peasant of Butka village, Sverdlovsk region, was declared kulak. His house, his mill, and other valuables were confiscated. According to different sources, Ignaty Yeltsin either fled the village to avoid further persecution, or was sent to internal Northern exile. On February 1, 1931, Ignaty’s grandson, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, was born in Butka. Soon afterwards, Boris Yeltsin’s family moved to the city of Kazan, where his father, Nikolai, worked at a construction site of a machine-building plant. On May 23, 1934, Nikolai Yeltsin was convicted of anti-Soviet agitation. He served 3 years in Stalin’s notorious labor camps of GULAG. After his release, Nikolai Yeltsin remained unemployed for a while, then worked in construction. Boris Yeltsin’s mother, Klavdiya Vasilyevna Yeltsina, worked as a seamstress.

In his youth, Boris blew off two fingers on his left hand while playing with a live grenade.

Boris graduated from Pushkin High School in Berezniki, Molotov (Perm) region, where his parents lived from late 1930s to the early 1970s. After graduation, Boris went to Ural Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk. While in college, Yeltsin played pro volleyball for Sverdlovsk in the USSR first division. In 1955, he graduated from Ural Polytechnic Institute, majoring in Construction.

In September, 1955, Yeltsin got his first job after college. He worked for Uraltiazhtrubstroy in Sverdlovsk. In his first year at work, Boris mastered twelve construction worker skills (stonemason, carpenter, driver, glazier, plasterer, etc.), a unique achievement for a young college graduate. Only then did Yeltsin agree to take a foreman’s job. Yeltsin participated in numerous construction projects in the Urals.

In 1956 Boris Yeltsin married Naina Iosifovna Girina, a student he knew in college. They have two daughters, Yelena and Tatiana, born in 1957 and 1959, respectively.

Russian military guards

Yeltsin’s engineering career advanced rapidly. In early 1960s, he held jobs of construction unit chief, chief engineer of a construction division, chief engineer of an integrated plant. In 1961, Yeltsin joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). By 1963, at the age of 32, he became chief of a housing construction integrated plant, where he had thousands of people under his command.

March 1989 became a turning point in Yeltsin’s career. He was elected to Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR from Moscow electoral district No. 1 in the first multi-candidate parliamentary elections in history of the USSR. One of the more populist parts of his electoral program was a call for reduction in spending on the Soviet space program. He received a seat in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he held the position of Chair of the Committee on Construction. More importantly, he became a co-leader of the Inter-Regional Group of deputies, which stood up for human rights and democratic reforms.

Yeltsin was elected speaker of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in May, 1990.

Boris Yeltsin On 12 June 1991 he was elected president of the Russian Federation with 57% of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president in Russian history. President of the USSR Gorbachev attended the inauguration ceremony (July 10, 1991) and congratulated President Yeltsin.

Even his rule did not bring the best to the Russian economy, it was the first step of the Soviet Russia towards the Democratic Russia. Following the 1998 Russian financial crisis, Yeltsin was at the end of his political career. Just hours before the first day of 2000, Yeltsin made a surprise announcement of his resignation, leaving the presidency in the hands of Vladimir Putin.

About 12,000 people wend to see the President

More then 12,000 persons went to say the last words and bless the remains of the President in the Kremlin Castle, Red Square. Bill Clinton and J. Bush Sr. are going to visit Kremlin as well as some other officials from Europe and Asia.