Boris Yeltsin dead

Seth Brundle

from http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/?jp=MHAUQLOJSNCW

Kremlin official confirms Yeltsin death
23/04/2007 - 15:14:53

[URL="javascript:ts('body',-1)"][/URL] [URL="javascript:ts('body',1)"][/URL]

Boris Yeltsin has died aged 76, a Kremlin official said today.

Yeltsin engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy as the country's first post-Communist president.

Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov said Yeltsin died, but gave no cause of death or further information.

The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.

Although Yeltsin was initially admired abroad for his defiance of the monolithic social system, many Russians will remember him mostly for presiding over the steep decline of their nation.

He was a contradictory figure, rocketing to popularity in the Communist era on pledges to fight corruption - but proving unable, or unwilling, to prevent the looting of state industry as it moved into private hands during his nine years as Russia's first freely elected president.

He also led Russia into a humiliating war against separatist rebels in Chechnya that ended with Russia's pullout.

Yeltsin, who suffered from severe heart problems during his time in office, resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, several months before his term was to end.

Should we expect the price of vodka to drop as the market becomes flooded?

InFront

The Czar of the Unpredictable does it again.

I didn't really admire him as a politician, he was foolish and stubborn, but also it has to be said that he was an independent thinker and not afraid to stand up to the US and Europe on foreign policy issues, which should be commended. His biggest legacies in Russian terms will probably be democratic success and economic failure.

And then there are the anecdotes.

mike65

Ah who'll forget the Shannon stop over, conducting the brass band, feeling up a brunette in a queue, shelling the White House and all his other japes. Looking back its a wonder we were'nt all blown to Kingdom Come several times over.

Mike.

InFront

Yes, good evidence that anyone really can own a nuke.

Botany Bay

Shares in Vodka will surely have fallen:D

brianthebard

InFront wrote:

The Czar of the Unpredictable does it again.

I didn't really admire him as a politician, he was foolish and stubborn, but also it has to be said that he was an independent thinker and not afraid to stand up to the US and Europe on foreign policy issues, which should be commended. His biggest legacies in Russian terms will probably be democratic success and economic failure.

And then there are the anecdotes.

I think economic failure should be attributed to what came before him, don't you?

InFront

No, not at all. Economies change over time. Conisder the Irish economy which was in tatters in 1991 and soaring in 1999, and then compare it to Russia.

Granted, they are immensely different situations, but Yeltsin failed to secure any real exonomic success in all of his time as President. He made some terrible choices, it nearly cost him his reputation entirely were it not for Putin jumping in and a lucky upturn in the global economy.
Inflation increased by a couple of thousand percent during his rule, the rouble almost collapsed, they took loans they simply couldn't afford. The 1990s under Yeltsin were a period of economic policy blunders for Russia, regardless of whatever starting point they had been given.

But again, it's not all negative. There are other aspects of domestic policy he succeeded in, I'm pretty sure education was one.