Boris Yeltsin, Boris-Yeltsin.com

Interview with officials close to Russian President Boris Yeltsin

A presidential portrait.

Boris Yeltsin heads the largest country in the world. The decisions that he makes affect us all, directly or indirectly. But what is he like personally? We offer you a glimpse of President Yeltsin, through the eyes of his staff, his family, and himself.

This piece is a composite from a series of interviews by freelance journalist Olga Kuchkina with officials who work closely with President Yeltsin. All of the people interviewed insisted on remaining anonymous, since the details they discussed are of a rather personal and subjective nature.

Q: The president has said that he wants to expand his sources of additional information. What does he mean?

A: He means that it is necessary to involve experts outside the Kremlin, who would provide him with independent information, even if it’s displeasing. Of course, he also reads many newspapers in order to gain first-hand information.

Q: It’s rumored that the president once came across something very uncomplimentary in one of the newspapers, threw it aside, and said he would never have that rag on his desk again. Is that accurate?

A: Something like that did happen once with Pravda. It’s very like him. He gets angry when he comes across abuse in the press — but he always asks for the next issue, all the same.

Q: Was he born that way, or does he owe his short temper to his years as a Communist Party functionary?

A: That’s the way he was born. He’s very vulnerable to criticism.

Q: If a citizen sends the president a letter, does it get through to him?

A: A team sorts out Mr. Yeltsin’s mail and summarizes it for him. Only the most serious and interesting letters reach him. He sometimes asks specifically to see the abusive ones — but letters consisting entirely of bad language are thrown in the wastebasket, of course.

Q: During the putsch attempt on October 3 and 4, 1993, one commentator said over the radio: “Thank you, Mr. Yeltsin. You’ve done your bit. Now go — to a monastery or wherever you like.” What did he feel in those days?

A: I don’t think the president had ever gone through anything so hard. When he used the word “tragedy” to describe it on television, he meant it. He felt involved in the public disorder and bloodshed. He did feel that he had sinned, and the idea of a monastery may in fact have occurred to him. He’ll never get away from the burden of his part in the tragedy. “I’m not a religious man, but I think I’ll come to God,” he said the other day. He feels the victims’ blood on him. That’s his cross.

The decision to order the assault on the parliament building was a terrible one to make, for him and for the people around him. We knew that as long as the rebels were there, they were able to pursue their ends. Some part of the army might have joined them — and the country would have plunged into civil war. Some of the documents from that time have yet to come to light, but we know for sure that the anti-reformers considered last autumn to be the moment to act (a sequence of actions was to build up, to be crowned by the reinstatement of Soviet rule on November 7). But we hoped that no blood would be spilled. The president stressed this again and again. We felt we could prevent it. That turned out to be impossible.

Q: Yeltsin is a good man who sees things on one level, and so events sometimes turn out differently than he expects. Maybe goodness isn’t enough, and one needs the gift of analysis — or an expert to stand by and say what can be expected of people of a different mentality?

A: Yeltsin is a huge and complicated person. Many of us have been working with him for years, every day, but we still don’t really know him. Here we have been talking about Yeltsin the man, but there is also Yeltsin the politician, with his cool mind and great foresight. Every moment, he is conscious that he is president of a vast country. He feels this responsibility with his heart and mind. But whatever his gift of calculation, practical politics aren’t a game of chess; there are always surprises.

Q: So the image of Yeltsin as mere resolution-signer is a false one, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s reference to the president’s advisers as “the king’s retinue” was unfair?

A: Zhirinovsky was trying to whip up public dissatisfaction. The president has an enormously complicated job, and he couldn’t do it without assistants. But experts are not the president. He might have made some wrong decisions, but Yeltsin is a man who knows when he has bungled, and says so — unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, for instance, who twists his way out of any predicament.

Yeltsin has an orderly mind and a rare memory. He can take up a new text and read it in no time, focusing on the center of the page — he sees the right and left edges in passing. Then he says, “I’m through.” Nobody believes him, and he recites the whole thing, word for word, to prove himself.

The practical side of the market reform came as quite a surprise to him. When Yegor Gaidar had just come to office as prime minister, he saw how quickly Yeltsin found his feet in the situation. Admittedly, Gaidar knew more about economics, as a scholar should — but in a matter of six weeks, the crew accepted Boris Yeltsin as their informal leader.

Q: Many people hate him like poison — some to a pathological degree. Why?

A: It’s hard to he indifferent to people like Boris Yeltsin. If he is hated, that means the haters are aware of his strength.

Mr. Yeltsin is very outspoken and can offend people at times. And then there are other reasons, which are beyond his control. Yeltsin became president during a time of trouble, when the Soviet Union fell apart. Many people felt robbed; they could no longer see themselves as citizens of a “great power.” And they blame the president for that.

Q: Well, how does he feel about the breakup of the Soviet Union?

A: It is a very painful thing for him, but he knows that he was not to blame for the breakup. It was the result of an objective crisis in the system, which was stronger than any individual.

Q: What are the president’s most important strategic tasks?

A: The main thing is to strengthen the Russian economy. This can be done only via a free market. Consequently, this country needs market reform. Then there’s the outdated Soviet communist system, which has to be coped with. There are other tasks, too. He sees his presidential mission as a paving of the way. This has to be done so that our successors can continue the job.