Drunk Boris Problem News Today

Hospital. he was increasingly rarely seen. when he was seen he was thought to be increasingly erratic. there were increasingly worries about the drunk boris problem. then surprise, new years eve 1999. americans are all worried about y2k and russians are worried about do we have a democracy? and this was their first democratically elected president. but yeltsin had a plan for his succession. he announced that he wanted his prime minister to take over. and that happened. and now those of us who fo...

Had been elected president of russia. before that, all soviet leaders had just been picked by the communist party. they had just been chosen internally by the party up to and including mikhail gorbachev. he was elected as the leader of the new russia after the end of the soviet union. yeltsin was a fascinating i think sort of frequently underestimated figure. in the west, i think we disproportionately remember him for being publicly drunk especially at inappropriate times. but he was a formidabl...

Had been elected president of russia. before that, all soviet leaders had just been picked by the communist party. they had just been chosen internally yby the party up to and including mikhail gorbachev. he was elected as the leader of the new russia after the end of the soviet union. yeltsin was a fascinating i think sort of frequently underestimated figure. in the west, i think we disproportionately remember him for being publicly drunk especially at inappropriate times. but he was a formidab...

1996 he was up for re-election. this is a new problem for a russian, right? but it turned out his re-election was really something to worry about. the country was kind of a mess, the government was broke. yeltsin was broke in terms of the assets and money he needed to mount his re-election campaign. and by 96, by the time he was running for re-election, there was this ongoing process of the former soviet union selling off what had been government-owned enterprises. they were deep into the proces...

Hospital. he was increasingly rarely seen. when he was seen he was thought to be increasingly erratic. there were increasingly worries about the drunk boris problem. then surprise, new years eve 1999. americans are all worried about y2k and russians are worried about do we have a democracy? and this was their first democratically elected president. but yeltsin had a plan for his succession. he announced that he wanted his prime minister to take over. and that happened. and now those of us who fo...

Maybe all the lights will go out. maybe toasters will start, you know, talking, maybe airplanes will fall out of the sky. it was a strange almost distraction. i mean, im not saying it wasnt a real concern. but the flipping of a calendar into a new millennium was a heck of a milestone to live through. you thought it would have been an occasion for a lot of awe and wonder maybe even spiritual if not just numerological reflection. but mostly we were just really freaked out about y2k. that was kind ...

Yeltsin had a massive heart surgery. he spent most of his second term in office in and out of the hospital. he was increasingly rarely seen. when he was seen he was thought to be increasingly erratic. there were increasingly worries about the drunk boris problem. then surprise, new years eve 1999. americans are all worried about y2k and russians are worried about do we have a democracy? and this was their first democratically elected president. but yeltsin had a plan for his succession. he annou...

That next number and that looked like 00, we thought how are the electronics, how are the computers going to deal with that? maybe all the lights will go out. maybe toasters will start, you know, talking, maybe airplanes will fall out of the sky. it was a strange almost distraction. i mean, im not saying it wasnt a real concern. but the flipping of a calendar into a new millennium was a heck of a milestone to live through. you thought it would have been an occasion for a lot of awe and wonder ma...

Noon on new years eve, 1999 in russia, their president got on tv, it was a surprise broadcast, and he said good-bye. he said good-bye. im quitting effective immediately. boris yeltsin randomly quit as president of russia on new years eve, 1999. it was a total shock. i mean, that said, russia had been through a lot of shocks at that point, 1989, of course, the berlin wall fell, 1991, the soviet union collapsed. that year 1991, boris yeltsin had been elected president of russia. before that, all s...

Freaked out about y2k. that was kind of the experience of december 31st, 1999. but its interesting. one very large country where they didnt end up freaking out all that much about y2k on december 31st, 99 while america and the rest of the world was worried about that problem, one place this they ended up not all distracted by that problem, they ended up not freaking out about that as the clock ticked toward midnight, was russia. because russia was distracted by something else on december 31th, 1...