2 Quotations from Sergei Filatov, Sovershenno nesekretno (Top nonsecret) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2000), 418–19; Vyacheslav Kostikov, Roman s prezidentom: zapiski press-sekretarya (Romance with a president: notes of a press secretary) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 1997), 163; and Tatyana Malkina, interview with the author (June 13, 2001).
3 Boris Yel’tsin, Zapiski prezidenta (Notes of a president) (Moscow: Ogonëk, 1994), 308; “Proshchaniye s mamoi” (Farewell to mama), Argumenty i fakty, March 24, 1993.
4 Oleg Poptsov, Khronika vremën “Tsarya Borisa” (Chronicle of the times of “Tsar Boris”) (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1995), 55.
5 Yeltsin holding his breath is taken from Shamil Tarpishchev, interview with the author (January 25, 2002). For the swims, see Aleksandr Korzhakov, Boris Yel’tsin: ot rassveta do zakata (Boris Yeltsin: from dawn to dusk) (Moscow: Interbuk, 1997), 77–78; Lev Sukhanov, Tri goda s Yel’tsinym: zapiski pervogo pomoshchnika (Three years with Yeltsin: notes of his first assistant) (Riga: Vaga, 1992), 306–7; and Aleksandr Lebed’, Za derzhavu obidno (I feel hurt for the state) (Moscow: Moskovskaya pravda, 1995), 380.
6 Shamil’ Tarpishchev, Samyi dolgii match (The longest match) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 1999), 300. The transferability of Yeltsin’s volleyball skills to tennis makes sense in light of history. William G. Morgan of Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented volleyball in 1895 as a mix of tennis, basketball, and handball.
7 Monica Crowley, Nixon in Winter (New York: Random House, 1998), 111. Yeltsin canceled a fourth meeting in 1994 out of unhappiness with Nixon having first met opposition politicians.
8 Tatyana Yumasheva, third interview with the author (January 25, 2007).
9 Muzhskoi razgovor (Male conversation), interview of Yeltsin by El’dar Ryazanov on REN-TV, November 7, 1993 (videotape supplied by Irena Lesnevskaya).
10 Boris Yel’tsin, Prezidentskii marafon (Presidential marathon) (Moscow: AST, 2000), 337.
11 Natal’ya Konstantinova, Zhenskii vzglyad na kremlëvskuyu zhizn’ (A woman’s view of Kremlin life) (Moscow: Geleos, 1999), 136.
12 Den’ v sem’e prezidenta (A day in the president’s family), interviews of the Yeltsin family by El’dar Ryazanov on REN-TV, April 20, 1993 (videotape supplied by Irena Lesnevskaya).
13 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 350. I learned about the philanthropy from my interviews with Irena Lesnevskaya (January 24, 2001) and Galina Volchek (January 30, 2002). Two of the actresses Naina Yeltsina aided were Sof’ya Pilyavskaya (1911–2000) and Marina Ladynina (1908—2003).
14 Konstantinova, Zhenskii vzglyad, 225.
15 Kozyrev interviewed in Prezident vseya Rusi (The president of all Russia), documentary film by Yevgenii Kiselëv, 1999–2000 (copy supplied by Kiselëv), 4 parts, part 2.
16 Vladimir Shevchenko, third interview with the author (July 15, 2001).
17 Yel’tsin, Marafon, 340–41. Yeltsin’s declared hard-currency book royalties peaked in 1994 at $280,000. He first made disclosures about his income and property during the 1996 election campaign. See A. A. Mukhin and P. A. Kozlov, “Semeinyye” tainy, ili neofitsial’nyi lobbizm v Rossii (“Family” secrets, or unofficial lobbying in Russia) (Moscow: Tsentr politicheskoi informatsii, 2003), 106–9.
18 Boris Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, trans. Catherine A. Fitzpatrick (New York: PublicAffairs, 2000), 314–15. The original is in Marafon, 340.
19 Author’s interviews with family members. In the late 1990s, for tax purposes, Yeltsin declared the value of the city apartment and the land and dacha at Gorki-10 at about $210,000. In today’s prices, the Gorki-10 land alone would be worth many times that. Unverifiable and, to me, implausible claims about the Yeltsins enriching themselves at the public trough can be found at http://compromat.ru/main/eltsyn/a.htm; and http://www.flb.ru/info. Many were originally published in the newspaper Moskovskii komsomolets.
20 Yu, M. Baturin et al., Epokha Yel’tsina: ocherki politicheskoi istorii (The Yeltsin epoch: essays in political history) (Moscow: VAGRIUS, 2001), 473.
21 Yeltsin’s displeasure at Rutskoi that day has been well documented. In one of his press interviews after the death of Yeltsin in 2007, Rutskoi said how impressed he was by the fact that Yeltsin never swore!
22 Aleksandr Korzhakov, interview with the author (January 28, 2002).
