Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin Борис Ельцин
1st President of Russia
In office 10 July 1991 – 31 December 1999
Prime Minister	Ivan Silayev Oleg Lobov (Acting) Yegor Gaidar (Acting) Viktor Chernomyrdin Sergey Kiriyenko Yevgeny Primakov Sergei Stepashin Vladimir Putin
Vice President	Alexander Rutskoy (1991–93)
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Vladimir Putin
Head of Government of Russia
In office 6 November 1991 – 15 June 1992
Preceded by	Oleg Lobov (Acting) (Chairman of the Council of Ministers — Government of the Russian SFSR)
Succeeded by	Yegor Gaidar (Acting) (Prime Minister of the Russian Federation)
Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR
In office 29 May 1990 – 10 July 1991
President	Mikhail Gorbachev
Preceded by	Vitaly Vorotnikov
Succeeded by	Ruslan Khasbulatov (Acting)
First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party
In office 23 December 1985 – 11 November 1987
Leader	Mikhail Gorbachev (Party General Secretary)
Preceded by	Viktor Grishin
Succeeded by	Lev Zaykov
Personal details
Born	Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin Борис Николаевич Ельцин 1 February 1931 Butka, Ural Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died	23 April 2007(2007-04-23) (aged 76) Moscow, Russian Federation
Nationality	Russian
Political party	Independent (after 1990)
Other political affiliations	Soviet Communist (1961–1990)
Spouse(s)	Naina Yeltsina
Children	Tatyana Borisovna Dyachenko Elena Borisovna Okulova
Alma mater	Ural State Technical University
Religion	Russian Orthodoxy
Signature
Central institution membership 1986–1988: Candidate member, 26th, 27th Politburo 1985–1986: Member, 26th Secretariat 1981–1990: Full member, 26th, 27th Central Committee Other offices held 1992–1992: Minister, Defence 1976–1985: First Secretary, Sverdlovsk Regional Committee

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (/ˈjɛltsɪn/;Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин; IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn]; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No one had resigned from the Politburo before. This act branded Yeltsin as a rebel and led to his rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure.

On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union. Upon the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, after which the RSFSR became the sovereign state of the Russian Federation, Yeltsin remained in office as president. He was reelected in the 1996 election, where critics widely claimed pervasive corruption; in the second round he defeated Gennady Zyuganov from the revived Communist Party by a margin of 13.7% (54.4% to 40.7%), despite the margin having been only 3.3% during the first round. However, Yeltsin never recovered his early popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s.