Yeltsin had rejuvenated himself politically just as he was failing corporeally. He entered his second term as Russia’s leader under contradictory stars, one of them encouraging and the other pointing in a discouraging direction. The night of July 3, family and friends gave him teary hugs and flowers. He had accomplished “a fantastic, surprising victory.” He wished he could dance a jig, and one suspects he would not have been averse to some liquid refreshment, but these were beyond him: “I lay in my hospital bed and gazed tensely at the ceiling.”110 Right he was to be tense. The game hereafter was about Yeltsin trying to resume Russia’s progress while grappling with grievous physical limitations and with power parameters that had changed subtly and unsubtly from those of his first term.
Exchanging pens with George H. W. Bush after initialing a strategic arms pact, Washington, June 17, 1992. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
Members of Yeltsin’s governing team, autumn 1992. Left to right: Yegor Gaidar, acting prime minister; Yurii Skokov, secretary of the Security Council; Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi; Aleksandr Korzhakov, chief of the Presidential Security Service. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
With Ruslan Khasbulatov, chairman of the Supreme Soviet, in 1992. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
With long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, January 1996. (AP IMAGES.)
Wielding the tennis racket, June 1992. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
With his mother, early 1990s. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
A quiet moment with Naina in Sochi, summer 1994. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
With Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the Berlin visit during which he attempted to conduct a police band, August 31, 1994. (AP IMAGES/JOCKEL FINCK.)
Walking beside the Kremlin wall in May 1995 with three of his most influential ministers. Left to right: Interior Minister Viktor Yerin; First Deputy Premier Oleg Soskovets; Defense Minister Pavel Grachëv. Aleksandr Korzhakov can be seen in the background. At right is Vladimir Shevchenko, chief of presidential protocol. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
The Russian White House billowing smoke after army tanks shell it on order from Yeltsin, October 4, 1993. (AP IMAGES/ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO.)
Negotiating with Chechen rebels, May 27, 1996. With Yeltsin, left to right: Viktor Chernomyrdin; Doku Zavgayev, head of the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya; Tim Guldimann of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, head of the Chechen delegation. (AP IMAGES/YURI KADOBNOV.)
Signing a cease-fire decree on an armored vehicle in Grozny, May 28, 1996. Yeltsin’s national security adviser, Yurii Baturin, is second from the left. Interior Minister Anatolii Kulikov (in the beret) is two persons behind. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
Comforting an elderly woman at a campaign stop in the Klyaz’ma district near Moscow, May 1996. (DMITRII DONSKOI.)
Shaking it up with rock singer Yevgenii Osin at an election rally in Rostov, June 10, 1996. (AP IMAGES/ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO.)
Embracing the crowd in downtown Kazan, June 9, 1996. Tatarstan’s president, Mintimer Shaimiyev, a key Yeltsin ally, is third from right. (RIA-NOVOSTI/ VLADIMIR RODIONOV.)
With Viktor Chernomyrdin and Chernomyrdin’s new first deputies, Anatolii Chubais (left) and Boris Nemtsov, after a cabinet shuffle, March 26, 1997. (AP IMAGES.)
Words to the wise from his daughter and adviser, Tatyana Dyachenko, June 1997. (CORBIS/SHONE VLASTIMIR NESIC.)
Bowing during the interment ceremony for Tsar Nicholas II and the last Russian royal family, St. Petersburg, July 17, 1998. (RIA-NOVOSTI/ VLADIMIR RODIONOV.)
With business oligarchs, September 15, 1997. Left to right: Mikhail Khodorkovskii, Vladimir Gusinskii, Aleksandr Smolenskii, Vladimir Potanin, Vladimir Vinogradov, Mikhail Fridman. Yeltsin’s chief of staff, Valentin Yumashev, is beside him. (AP IMAGES.)
Boris Berezovskii, November 1997. (AP IMAGES/MISHA JAPARIDZE.)
Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, July 1998. (AP IMAGES/MISHA JAPARIDZE.)
With Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov and the presidential chief of staff, Nikolai Bordyuzha, February 1999. (AP IMAGES.)
Sergei Stepashin, Yeltsin’s second-last prime minister, June 1999. (AP IMAGES/ MIKHAIL METZEL.)
With Vladimir Putin at his presidential inauguration, May 7, 2000. (AP IMAGES/ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO.)
Cheering the Russian team’s victory over France in the Fed Cup women’s tennis tournament, Moscow, November 28, 2004. (AP IMAGES/MIKHAIL METZEL.)
A celebratory toast with Vladimir Putin, Lyudmila Putina, and Bill Clinton at Yeltsin’s seventy-fifth birthday, St. George’ Hall, the Kremlin, February 1, 2006. (YELTSIN FAMILY ARCHIVE.)
Yeltsin’s coffin being carried out of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, April 25, 2007. (RIA-NOVOSTI/MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV.)
