Butka, Russia, the village in which Boris Yeltsin was born on February 1, 1931, in what was then the USSR, photographed sixty years later, in 1991, when Yeltsin was already president of Russia
BORIS YELTSIN
ORIGINS
Character and personality matter in a political leader. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin's were formed in hard times common to many, with particularities specific to him. He was the son of peasants, born during the Soviet Great Depression of collectivization, with his family forced to move off the land to survive. He was to have a taste of the Soviet sweet as well as the sour: his father received only four years of education, and his mother never went to school except for evening classes at work -- but he himself managed to attend college and be graduated as an engineer.
That Yeltsin was almost drowned while being baptized is part of his legend. His mother, Klavdia Vasil'evna Yeltsin, implicitly blames this happenstance on the rules within which rural religious were forced to live. When he was born, on February 1, 1931, baptisms were allowed only once a month, so there was quite a queue, with each family bringing a toast for the priests. By the time it was Baby Yeltsin's turn, the two priests were rather tipsy, and forgot to lift the infant out of the baptismal tub. His mother cried out and saved him.
Her son's rebellions against authority (in school and out) are also part of the story he tells. What is less often remarked upon is the family structure. Boris was the first child, and for a significant amount of time an only child. His siblings were widely spaced, with a brother, Mikhail (Misha), six years younger and a sister, Valentina (Valya), thirteen years younger. So he grew up without any immediate peers in his family, and, as his mother tells it, accustomed to much responsibility for a child.
To be continued in: RUSSIA REDUX
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