Mother Russia Lays to Rest a Favored Son
Russians said goodbye last week to Boris Yeltsin, who rose from Communist Party apparatchik to democratically elected president and launched a "new" Russia into the post-Soviet era. For this, he is fittingly remembered in the West as a towering figure (though occasionally tottering, given his affinity for alcohol).
In Russia, his legacy is more complicated. Freedom, it turned out, came at a price: Hyperinflation devoured people's life savings while Yeltsin's cronies exploited economic reform to loot the country's wealth. When tiny Chechnya moved for independence, Yeltsin launched what would become a near-genocidal war. The challenges of overcoming decades of Soviet misrule might have been too much for anyone. In time, the Siberian bear who rallied the masses when he climbed atop a tank in Moscow to stare down an attempted coup by hard-liners seemed to lose his common touch. And eventually, like his Soviet predecessors, he retreated behind the high, thick Kremlin walls as his popularity and health declined.
When Yeltsin abruptly resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, his handpicked successor seemed an odd choice. Vladimir Putin was dapper and diminutive alongside the hefty Yeltsin, yet the former KGB man's appearance belied his toughness. He gave Russians what they said they wanted: more order. He recentralized political power and virtually eliminated the free press and political debate that blossomed in the Yeltsin era. He crushed the Chechen separatist movement and renationalized strategic industries. Thanks to rising oil and natural gas prices, the nation's economy is booming, and President Putin enjoys a level of popularity that Yeltsin-and, for that matter, George W. Bush-would envy.
Yeltsin, who died at 76 of heart failure, broke with the past even in death. His funeral was preceded by a church ceremony, the first for a former head of state since before the Bolshevik Revolution. And unlike Soviet leaders who were buried close to the Kremlin Wall, Yeltsin chose the company of Russia's better angels: He was laid to rest in Novodevichy Cemetery, alongside famous writers, composers, and scientists.
This story appears in the May 7, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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