Some interesting facts about the first Russian president. Yeltsin's fingers and other stories

An entire era in the history of our country is associated with the name of Boris Yeltsin: the collapse of the USSR, economic reforms, the war in Chechnya, default. However, his contemporaries remembered him not only for his political actions, but also for the characteristics of his personality. Dni.Ru has collected the most interesting facts about the life of the first president of Russia.

Three-fingered

The first Russian president was missing two fingers on his left hand. He lost them as a child. Yeltsin himself wrote in his autobiographical book “Confession on a Given Topic” that he lost his fingers due to a grenade explosion.

It was during the war. All the boys wanted to go to the front, but boys who were not yet 10 years old were naturally not allowed to go to war. Yeltsin and his comrades decided to find a grenade; they were interested in taking it apart and finding out what was inside.

At night Yeltsin penetrated the ranks barbed wire into the church building, where at that time there was an ammunition depot, he took two RGD-33 grenades and safely got back, past the guards. Then the future president and his friends ran into the forest and decided to take apart the “trophies.” The ammunition was hit with a hammer, resulting in an explosion. Only Yeltsin suffered, his comrades were not touched. On the way to the city, he lost consciousness several times. Already in the hospital, two of his fingers were amputated under his father’s signature.

Boris Yeltsin (second from left) Photo: wikipedia.org

Brave Master

In 1950, 19-year-old Yeltsin entered the Ural Polytechnical Institute to the Faculty of Civil Engineering, which he graduated five years later with the qualification “civil engineer”. In the same year, he was assigned to a construction trust, where he worked as the head of one of the sections.

According to Yeltsin’s recollections, one day he was given criminals to subordinate to him. A conflict arose between the boss and his subordinates: the future president refused to close the criminals’ orders for unfinished work. The next day, one of them waylaid Yeatsin with an ax and, under threat of death, tried to force him to close the squads. He was not at a loss. "Go away!" - he sharply answered the attacker, after which the criminal had no choice but to throw the ax and leave.

By the way, being already experienced builder With 10 years of experience, Yeltsin worked as an engineer at the Sverdlovsk house-building plant. At the end of the five-year plan, he was to be nominated for the Order of Lenin. But the award ceremony did not take place. On the eve of the confirmation of the candidacy, an almost completed five-story residential building, which was being built by the structure headed by Yeltsin, collapsed.

Failed suicide

At the end of 1985, on the recommendation of Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin was approved for the post of first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. However, the relationship between the head of state and the head of the capital did not work out. Yeltsin began to criticize Gorbachev and his supporters for excessive privileges and the slow pace of perestroika.

Boris Yeltsin. Photo: wikipedia.org

In November 1987, he accused the Secretary General of the birth of a new cult of personality. After this, Yeltsin was removed from the post of first secretary of the Moscow City Committee. He had a hard time with this turn of events: due to a nervous breakdown he ended up in the hospital, and there he tried to commit suicide.

The party leadership became aware of the suicide attempt. The incident cast a shadow over the entire leadership of the CPSU, so Gorbachev did everything possible to hide the episode from the press. At that time, the Secretary General was trying to improve relations with foreign leaders, and the suicide of a political opponent would have brought these attempts to naught.

Crash in the sky

During Yeltsin’s trip to Europe in April 1990 with the presentation of the book “Confession on a Given Topic,” the future first president of Russia made an unscheduled flight to Spain. The flight went well, but when it came to landing, the plane's landing gear failed.

The pilot tried to correct the situation: he sharply picked up speed and just as sharply threw the car down, swinging it from wing to wing. The plane flew over the runway and picked up speed again, making another approach. At some point, the pilots tried to land the car on the water, but failed. They tried to push the ill-fated chassis manually - all in vain. The plane continued to circle over the landing strip.

In the end, the pilots managed to release the landing gear, but the landing was still hard and bounced. The plane's passengers were not injured. One of Yeltsin’s associates later recalled that he was struck by the boss’s calmness and restraint: he did not make it clear with either a look or a gesture that he was scared.

Casanova

There were legends about the weakness of the first president of Russia towards the female sex. The personal security guard of the head of state, Alexei Chalov, told how sometimes Yeltsin, already drunk, repeated with a smile: “I love women!” The Central Committee of the Communist Party found out about the excessive love of the “Ural nugget” and made a serious suggestion to the Don Juan, they say, you have a family, and in general, it’s not good for a communist to spoil his reputation.

A remarkable incident occurred on September 28, 1989. After a meeting with voters in the Moscow district of Ramenki, Yeltsin went to the Moscow region to the dacha of his friend Sergei Bashilov, the former minister of construction in the Urals and Western Siberia. Boris Nikolaevich described further events as follows: he got out of the car, headed to the gate of the dacha, unknown people drove up, threw a bag over his head, took him away in an unknown direction and threw him into the river from the bridge. In his opinion, this was nothing more than an assassination attempt.

However, rumors immediately appeared that there was no attack, but just banal amorous adventures. It was no coincidence that rumors about this spread among the people. Even before this incident, rumors were spreading that Yeltsin liked Bashilov’s housekeeper, Elena Stepanova. The woman herself did not deny this sympathy. However, she claimed that Yeltsin was not coming to her that night. And he fell from the bridge due to alcohol consumption or due to simple negligence.

It is known that already as president, Yeltsin showed signs of attention to his secretaries. Once, during an official ceremony, he pinched the side of one of the Kremlin stenographers. The episode was shown on television.

Green serpent

Many remember the first president of Russia as a person who was fond of alcohol. History has gone down many cases when the head of state, as they say, while drunk, did things completely inappropriate for his status.

In 1989, Yeltsin visited the United States for the first time. He was preparing to meet with President George W. Bush and was later scheduled to give a lecture to the Council on international relations. American media wrote that after landing in Baltimore, Yeltsin walked down the ramp, and then suddenly turned around, walked up to the wheel of the plane and began to urinate on it. After that, as if nothing had happened, he went to shake hands with those greeting him.

The president showed questionable behavior in Kazakhstan, where he made his first official foreign visit as head of state. After drinking at dinner, he decided to play with spoons. First he hit his own leg, then he began to hit his subordinate. The audience laughed, thereby only provoking Yeltsin. He began banging spoons on neighboring heads and, they say, tapped a rhythm on the bald head of the then President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev.

In August 1994, Yeltsin, during a visit to Germany, snatched the baton from the conductor and began conducting the orchestra himself. The head of the presidential security, Alexander Korzhakov, recalled that before this the head of state drank a lot of wine, the waiter barely had time to pour it into his glass. Yeltsin frolicked, cackled, waved his arms and “spoke outright nonsense,” Korzhakov noted.

During a visit to the United States in 1995, Yeltsin, while drunk, went out into the street in his underwear and began hailing a taxi. The head of state explained to the intelligence agents who caught him that he just wanted to eat pizza. The incident was reported to President Bill Clinton. "We must never forget that drunk Yeltsin is better than most of the alternative candidates who don't drink," he said.

Korzhakov noted that the first president of Russia started drinking in the morning. “It’s good if you managed to bring the boss home at about 10 or 11 at night. This was an ordinary day,” recalled the head of Yeltsin’s personal security. Weakened by illness and alcohol, the president is losing control over the country, wrote Michael Binion, The Times correspondent in Moscow, in those years.

There is a well-known expression in the Russian language, or rather, a verbal screen: “contradictory personality.” For example, Leo Tolstoy - great writer, humanist and philosopher. At the same time, the count did not miss a single peasant skirt. He knocked up girls in vain - that’s the basis for declaring him a “controversial personality.” That is, there seems to be reason to call a person dishonest, but other merits outweigh this dishonesty. And Peter the Great was dubbed controversial, and Ivan the Terrible, and Joseph Stalin. In general, if conscience does not allow you to directly call him an enemy and a tyrant, the definition of “controversial personality” is used.

The situation with the first president of Russia, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1931 - 2007), is even more complicated. Everyone admits that he is a very controversial person. One problem is that there are very few positive things among Yeltsin’s contradictions. On the other hand, Yeltsin is firmly inscribed in the current political paradigm. Throw you out of the modern building Russian politics Boris Nikolayevich - it turns out that all the pillars of modern Russian industry are people who managed to receive unprecedented preferences from the always half-drunk president. The same applies to most politicians and artists. Shout “And the king is naked!” Only a few were able to, and even then some of them, like Alexander Korzhakov, took revenge on Yeltsin for his disgrace.

Most likely, we will never know what motivated Yeltsin in the historical era of 1987 - 1993. But whatever the motives of Boris Nikolaevich’s actions, his actions directly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of oligarchic rule in the vastness of Russia. Only in the 21st century did the country begin to gradually recover from the consequences of the rule of its first president. Here are some facts from the biography of B. N. Yeltsin, illustrating his movement to power and behavior on political Olympus.

1. Boris Yeltsin’s father was a stern, if not cruel, man. His arsenal of punishments included not only flogging with a belt, but also standing in a drafty corner of the barracks throughout the night. However, the severity of punishments helped little in the matter of education.

2. Boris studied well, but received a certificate of completion of the seven-year school only through the regional department of education. At the certificate presentation ceremony, he began to criticize one of the teachers, for which the certificate he had just been awarded was taken away.

3. Yeltsin’s father served time for anti-Soviet agitation, but Boris, filling out hundreds of questionnaires, managed not to mention this even once. Where the inspectors looked remains a mystery and gives rise to very bad suspicions. Moreover, “enemies of the people” were not only in Yeltsin’s family tree.

4. While studying in Sverdlovsk, Yeltsin devoted a lot of time to sports, but did not ask for any concessions in his studies.

5. During the distribution work, the future chief builder of the USSR received driver, mason, tower crane operator, etc. certificates within a year - a total of 12 specialties. He learned to sip a glass in parallel with his acquisition of working professions.

6. Yeltsin’s wife Naina was actually named Anastasia. This was written down both on the birth certificate and in the passport. However, her father immediately began calling her Naya, and gradually everyone got used to the name Naina. The wife of the future president changed her passport details only in the 1960s.

7. After the birth of his first daughter, Yeltsin was terribly upset, and his wife directly told the doctors at the hospital that her husband would not let her go home. After the birth of his second daughter, Yeltsin declared: “I won’t give birth again!”

Yeltsin and daughters

8. Working as director of a house-building plant, Yeltsin appeared at home very rarely. It got to the point that when the family went to celebrate receiving the award at a restaurant, neighbors in the building where the Yeltsins received an apartment congratulated Naina on the fact that she managed to find a husband and father for her daughters.

9. Both of Yeltsin’s daughters have children from their first marriages (Elena’s daughter and Tatyana’s son), “registered” with their second husbands. The names of Sergei Fefelov (Elena’s first husband) and Vilena Khairullina (Tatiana’s first passion) have been erased from the family chronicle.

10. The first house, which was built under the leadership of Yeltsin the foreman, still stands in Yekaterinburg. His address is Griboyedov Street, 22.

11. When Yeltsin was already working as director of a house-building plant, a five-story building built by Yeltsin’s DSK collapsed in Sverdlovsk. Severe punishment followed - instead of the promised Order of Lenin, Yeltsin received the Order of the Badge of Honor.

12. Yeltsin was protected by the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Yakov Ryabov. Having dragged Yeltsin to the post of first secretary of the city committee of the CPSU, Ryabov himself was forced to fight Yeltsin’s rudeness and rudeness, but it was too late.

Yakov Ryabov

13. Having become the first secretary of the regional committee, Yeltsin gained unprecedented popularity for those years, hosting a weekly live television program dedicated to the fight against shortcomings. Viewers could call directly on air, and the first secretary would solve problems over the phone on the spot.

14. Under Yeltsin, a metro, several theaters, a Youth Palace, a House of Political Education and a number of others appeared in Sverdlovsk public buildings. It was in Sverdlovsk that the first MHCs appeared - youth housing complexes, built by the hands of future residents in their free time from work. Now this may seem crazy, but in those years it was one of the most realistic ways to quickly get an apartment.

Sverdlovsk Palace of Youth

15. By order of Yeltsin, Ipatiev’s house was demolished, in the basement of which they were shot royal family and servants. Formally, Borin Nikolaevich carried out the decision of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, but it was adopted in 1975 and the then first secretary Yakov Krotov found an opportunity not to implement it. Yeltsin, apparently having discovered the paper with the decision, demolished the famous mansion in 1977.

16. In 1985, Yeltsin began the conquest of Moscow, becoming first the head of the construction department of the Central Committee, and then the secretary of the Central Committee. It was actively promoted by Vladimir Dolgikh, Yegor Ligachev and Mikhail Gorbachev himself. Subsequently, they all suffered seriously from Yeltsin’s rancor. And already in December, Yeltsin became the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee. Impressive climbing speed career ladder— three positions in 8 months.

17. Under Yeltsin, 1,500 stores were opened in Moscow, food fairs appeared for the first time, and City Day was celebrated (1987).

18. Yeltsin’s fall, which actually turned out to be a rise, began on October 21, 1987. He spoke at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, after which they began to slowly push him into the shadows, first by removing him from his post as head of the Moscow City Committee. However, these “repressions” turned Yeltsin into a folk hero.

19. One of the interviews given by Yeltsin “in disgrace” was reprinted in 140 Soviet newspapers and magazines.

20. In the first elections of people's deputies of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin received more than 90% of the votes in Moscow electoral district No. 1. Since politics in Russia has always been done and is being done in the capitals, after such a result of the main oppositionist M. Gorbachev and his comrades it was already possible to pack up their things and move from the Kremlin. But the agony continued for another year and a half.

21. The Yeltsin family first received and then privatized a state-owned dacha in the village of Gorki-10. Maxim Gorky once lived at this dacha.

22. On September 9, 1987, Boris Nikolaevich either fell on the scissors or attempted suicide. And on September 28, 1989, a story occurred with the alleged abduction of Yeltsin and throwing him off the bridge in a sack. After two decades, such adventures look funny and childish, but in the late 1980s the whole country was worried about Yeltsin. “The machinations of the Kremlin and the KGB,” the opinion was almost unanimous.

23. At the end of May 1990, after three voting attempts, Yeltsin was elected head of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. Two weeks later, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia was adopted, and Soviet Union completely went downhill.

The post of Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR was only a springboard

24. Yeltsin became President of Russia exactly one year after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence - June 12, 1991. He received more than 57% of the votes. A year later, the number of Yeltsin supporters decreased by 2.5 times - Gaidar reforms began.

25. During the so-called putsch of 1991, Yeltsin’s main guard, Alexander Korzhakov, persistently suggested that his ward take refuge from the all-powerful KGB and special forces in the American embassy. However, Yeltsin showed courage and categorically refused to leave the White House. Now we know that the intentions of the Emergency Committee were not bloodthirsty, but in those days there were tanks on the streets of Moscow.

26. When Boris Yeltsin was recording on television the famous decree No. 1400, which allowed him to forcefully disperse the Supreme Council, the teleprompter in the studio malfunctioned. Yeltsin was not embarrassed by this. Technical difficulties, as he would write later, helped him calm down.

27. On September 22, 1993, the Constitutional Court of Russia, by a vote of 9 to 4, declared Decree No. 1400 unconstitutional, and its signing was an action sufficient to remove Yeltsin from the post of president. From the moment this decision was made public, all of Yeltsin’s actions were formally illegal. However, the parliament was shot, and Yeltsin's power after that became almost absolute.

28. “Operation Sunset is not a clever Russian intelligence operation. This is what Yeltsin’s security chief, Alexander Korzhakov, and his subordinates called the actions of diluting vodka with water and then restoring the integrity of the cork on the bottle intended for Yeltsin. The President was amazed that modern vodka was drunk better than Soviet vodka.

29. On June 30, 1995, after Shamil Basayev and his gang seized the hospital in Budyonnovsk, at a meeting of the Security Council, Boris Yeltsin resigned as president. His comrades persuaded him to remain in his post.

30. It is believed that in 1994 - 1996, Yeltsin suffered five heart attacks in a short time, turning into a ruin by the 1996 elections. However, former Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Nikolai Ryzhkov claimed that two heart attacks happened to Yeltsin back in Sverdlovsk.

31. Yeltsin’s victory in the second round of the 1996 elections was ensured, among other things, by the insane lies of the media. Evgeny Kiselev on NTV provided filming of Yeltsin’s staged meetings with workers, peasants, youth and other segments of the population. And at one of the real meetings (in Krasnodar), Yeltsin was offered to resign. Boris Nikolaevich, apparently remembering his triumphant experiences of communicating with the crowd, loudly asked who agreed with such a proposal. The answer was monosyllabic: “Everything!” But thanks to the media, cash injections to the oligarchs and falsifications, Yeltsin won 53.8% of the vote.

Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin- first president Russian Federation. He was a very bright figure in politics and in life, but during his presidency many, sometimes funny, stories happened to him, which did not escape the attention of the media and remained in the memory of many people. Many facts are also known from Yeltsin’s personal life even before he became head new Russia. Today's selection contains 10 facts from the life of Boris Yeltsin.

In November 1987, after Yeltsin sharply criticized Gorbachev's policies, he was removed from his post as first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. Immediately after this, he was taken to the hospital, where, according to some reports, he tried to commit suicide with office scissors.

#1850

According to Yeltsin himself, when he worked as a foreman at a construction site, criminals were given his subordination. He refused to close their orders for work not done, after which one of the criminals ambushed him with an ax and demanded to close the orders, threatening to kill him if he refused, to which Yeltsin answered him: “Get out!”, and the criminal had no choice but to throw the ax and follow in the direction indicated by Yeltsin.

#1839

According to numerous testimonies of people who worked with Yeltsin, he abused alcohol. When he asked the guards to run for vodka, they went to Korzhakov, who allegedly secretly diluted the vodka and sealed the bottle using a machine that was seized from counterfeit vodka dealers and given to the police museum, and later to Korzhakov. After heart surgery, doctors forbade Yeltsin to drink a lot.

#1843

Once, when he was president, Boris Yeltsin pinched the side of one of the Kremlin stenographers during an official ceremony; this episode was shown on television.

In 1990, the plane in which Yeltsin was flying to Spain was involved in an accident. He made a very hard landing, as a result of which Boris Nikolaevich received a serious spinal injury. Later there was a lot of talk about the fact that this accident was arranged by the KGB.

#1854

After Yeltsin’s death, at a meeting of the State Duma, the Communist faction refused to stand in honor of the former president.

#1852

On February 1, 2011, in honor of the 80th anniversary of the birth of the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, a 10-meter monument was inaugurated in his homeland in Yekaterinburg.

#2722 February 1, 2011. Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina gives a speech at the opening ceremony of the monument to Boris Yeltsin in Yekaterinburg. The memorial symbolizes the powerful nature of the first president of Russia. Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin received the honor of becoming the first president of Orthodox Russia. Communists and patriots speak of his activities with the most unflattering words, and liberals, in turn, call him “The Father of Russian Democracy.”

Many still remember the turbulent times when this politician reached the pinnacle of power. Yeltsin can be credited with the collapse of the USSR, the 1993 coup, the war in Chechnya, and the incredible victory in the second

presidential elections and the voluntary surrender of power on New Year's Eve 2000. To better understand what kind of person Boris Nikolaevich was, we decided to collect the most interesting facts about his personality. Go!

Yeltsin was born in 1931 in

Sverdlovsk region

. His parents were dispossessed peasants. My father, a builder, was sent here to build the Volga-Don Canal

Boris studied poorly at school; in the seventh grade, due to a conflict with the teacher, he almost flew out of school. Then he dared to ask for help from the local communist cell. Soon he was transferred to another educational institution

After graduating from university, Yeltsin went into politics, joining the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee. Most of all, he was remembered there for the demolition of the Ipatiev house, where Nicholas II and his family were shot

Boris Nikolaevich got into big politics during Gorbachev’s purges of 1985. Then, due to the actions of the Secretary General, no fewer communists lost their positions than under Stalin in 1937

The father of democracy was especially concerned about his image before the people. He used public transport and could have a couple of drinks with ordinary workers in Moscow eateries. People loved him

In 1989, Yeltsin flew to the United States to give lectures on the USSR. Throughout the trip he was drunk as a whole, as evidenced by the recordings of lectures in which he could barely move his tongue. The return of the future president was especially memorable. Coming off the plane in Moscow, he swayed and urinated on the wheel of the airliner.

In 1990, Boris became interested in criticizing the communists and Gorbachev personally. He publicly leaves the Communist Party, saying: “The only thing that connects Trotsky and me is that in 1927 he voluntarily left the Politburo, and since then no one has voluntarily left the Politburo except me.”

In 1991, the first national elections for the President of the RSFSR were held in Russia, in which Yeltsin won with 57% of the votes. Inflation begins, and he declares: “If prices become uncontrollable, more than three or four times higher, I myself will fall on the rails.” He never kept his promise

Although Yeltsin proclaimed himself a democrat, he had the powers of a tsar. The conflict with the Supreme Soviet in 1993, during which the White House was shelled, confirms this

In 1994, the ever sober president started a war with Chechnya. A quick victory could not be achieved, so a humiliating truce had to be signed in 1996. Surprisingly, next elections he won

The 1996 election campaign showed how much the zombie box influences the population. The gray-haired man's rating jumped from 5 to 50%

The President loved to pour on his collar and did it with enviable regularity. He did this even during official visits to other countries. So, in Germany, the blue Yeltsin tried to conduct an orchestra in front of cameras around the world

In Ireland, Yeltsin did not show up for a meeting with the prime minister because the guards could not wake him up after another drinking session. The whole world applauded the alcoholic sitting on the red button. At home they just shrugged

For the New Year 2000, Yeltsin gave the people a gift. The whole country was waiting for his departure, people were so tired of his antics and complete incompetence.

The former president passed away in 2007. In recent years, he stopped appearing in public, completely withdrawing from politics and public life. Few can name his achievements.

1. Yeltsin was missing two fingers on his left hand. He lost them as a child in the explosion of a grenade that he and his friends stole from a military warehouse. In general, as a child, Yeltsin was terribly pugnacious. In one of the district-to-district fights, his nose was broken with a shaft.

2. At 35, Yeltsin worked as the chief engineer of the Sverdlovsk DSK. At the end of the five-year plan, he was to be nominated for the Order of Lenin. However, the award ceremony did not take place: on the eve of the approval of Yeltsin’s candidacy, an almost completed five-story building, which was being built by the structure headed by Yeltsin, collapsed.

3. In November 1987, after Yeltsin sharply criticized Gorbachev's policies, he was removed from the post of first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. Immediately after this, he was taken to the hospital, where, according to some reports, he tried to commit suicide with office scissors.

4. In 1989, Yeltsin made his first private visit to the United States. Western media wrote that in Baltimore, having descended from the plane along the ramp, he suddenly turned to the wheel of the plane and urinated on it. After that, without wiping or washing his hands, he went to shake hands with those who greeted him.

5. The famous phrase “Boris, you’re wrong!” was pronounced by Ligachev. He accused Yeltsin of the fact that it was his fault that food stamps were used in the Sverdlovsk region at that time.

6. In 1990, Yeltsin had an accident during his visit to Spain. He made a very hard landing, as a result of which Boris Nikolaevich received a serious spinal injury. Later there was a lot of talk about the fact that this accident was arranged by the KGB.

7. At the end of 1991, it was not Yeltsin who congratulated the people of Russia on the New Year, but the famous satirist Mikhail Zadornov. According to Zadornov himself, they explained to him that Yeltsin was working with documents, and “he would work with them binge all holiday week.”

8. Yeltsin's love for playing spoons was often demonstrated by him both in Russia and abroad. Alexander Korzhakov says that in 1992, during a visit to Kyrgyzstan, Boris Yeltsin used the head of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev to play spoons.

9. Many people remember Yeltsin as a person who was fond of alcohol. History includes cases when he snatched the baton from the conductor in Germany and began conducting the orchestra himself, or how he “slept through” a meeting with the President of Ireland. Bill Clinton said of Yeltsin: “We must never forget that drunk Yeltsin is better than most of the non-drinking alternatives.”

10. After Yeltsin’s death, at a meeting of the State Duma, the communist faction refused to honor the memory of the former president by standing.