Boris Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin {{Audio|ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg|listen}} (Russian: ????? ?????????? ??????, Boris Nikolaevi? El'cin; b. 1 February 1931, Butka (Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, Soviet Union), was president of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was the first democratically elected leader in the country's history.

Early Life

Boris Yeltsin was born to a peasant family in Butka village, Talitsa district, Sverdlovsk region on February 1, 1931. His father, Nikolai Yeltsin, was convicted of Anti-Soviet agitation in 1934 and served in Stalin's labor camps in a gulag for three years. After his release he remained unemployed for a while and then worked in construction. His mother, Klavdiya Vasilyevna Yeltsina, worked as a seamstress.

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When he was 12 or 13 years old, in the middle of World War II, Yelsin blew off the thumb and forefinger of his left hand while disassembling an RGD-33 grenade that he and two of his friends had stolen from a weapons warehouse.

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Yeltsin studied at Pushkin High School in Berezniki, Perm region and the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk, majoring in construction, and graduated in 1955.

Related Topics:
Pushkin High School - Perm - Ural Polytechnic Institute - Construction - 1955

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