Apr
23
Category: 
|The big man is dead.
For some time a poster, signed by such luminaries as Alla Pugacheva, hung in my hall, proclaiming, “Президент должен всегда побеждать” (The President must always conquer). The poster features a decisive-looking grey-haired man in the prime of his life. He is standing with a single raised fist in front of the Russian tricolour. The poster appears to encapsulate the confidence of a fledgling democracy.
Two years previous to the publication of the poster, this man had astonished a worried world by climbing on top of a tank and declaring the Gekachepisty, who were responsible for seizing power in the USSR on 19th August, to have broken the law.
As I arrived in Russia, on 7th September 1993, the country was in an economic crisis. Civil servants had not been paid for weeks or months and organised criminals held the reigns to many businesses, small and large.
Within a couple of weeks the rouble had, once more, been significantly devalued. The President dissolved Parliament but the Constitutional Court declared that the President could be impeached.
Moscow was not a stable place at this time.
As I made my way on Saturday, 3rd October to see an old pen-friend at her flat off Prospekt Mira, an unlikely alliance of anarchists, fascists and communists was making its way across the Moscow River by Gorky Park towards the White House which had seen extended demonstrations.
That evening, as Army units carrying Soviet flags sped towards the Ostankino television tower and other key installations, there were appeals on Moscow’s regional television station for all able-bodied men to defend the Interior Ministry.
The following morning troops loyal to the President launched their attacks on the Parliament. Soon afterwards the President needed to reestablish his authority among the people. It was in this climate that I obtained my poster of the late Boris Nikolayevich’ Yeltsin.
History will properly judge him and his legacy. He was the first ever democratically-elected leader of Russia, elected to serve over a period of crisis. Many of his later decisions may well be unfathomable, yet I cannot help but shed a quiet tear for him.
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1st February 1931–23rd April 2007)
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