Boris Yeltsin Elected President of Russia (1991)

Yeltsin served as Russia's first democratically elected president. He directed the Russian Federation's secession from the USSR and the formation of a new, decentralized confederation, the Commonwealth of Independent States, with himself as its leader. As president, Yeltsin instituted a radical reform program that consisted of the mass privatization of state-run enterprises, after which the country experienced inflation, heavy taxes, and a protracted economic depression. Who succeeded Yeltsin? More...

What a wonderful day when Communism fell.

People were so happy.

The Russian people were now free and would live in a democracy.

Now it is 2014.

Everyone's hopes have been dashed.

There is now another dictator.

And if you are his friend, you can become rich.

The ordinary people must suffer -- or try to emigrate to Europe or the United States.

Yeltsin became popular with the people by firing corrupt officials, freeing up the media and, not least, cutting through bureaucracy to get fresh fruits and vegetables into Moscow before they spoiled.

The disparity between the lives of the elite and the ordinary troubled him. He rode the subway and visited stores and factories to see conditions firsthand.

"As long as no one can build or buy his own dacha, as long as we continue to live in such relative poverty, I refuse to eat caviar followed by sturgeon," he wrote in "Against the Grain."

But his activism rankled the party's old guard and Gorbachev himself.

"I sometimes wonder how I managed to end up among all these people," he wrote in "Against the Grain," noting the Soviet system usually weeded out dissenters ruthlessly."

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/yeltsin/stories/bio1/index.html