BORIS YELTSIN "THE OBSCURE" & THE COUP III

'THE COUP MADE 

BORIS YELTSIN' 

BORIS YELTSIN OUT IN TYUMEN' 

TEN DAYS BEFORE THE COUP 

WORKING ON BUILDING A 

NEW RUSSIAN STATE 

(see here and here) 

August 22, 1991:  Mikhail Gorbachev arrives back in Moscow from his imprisonment in the Crimea, and fails to notice the new realities on the ground. 

Boris Yeltsin does. 

Why the coup plotters did not actually grab Yeltsin, however, puzzled him. 

Now we have a commentary in the New York Times, by one Victor Sebestyen, invoking once again the image of Yeltsin on the tank:  "This stirring scene was foolishly allowed to be shown on TV that evening, turning the obscure Yeltsin into a figure of world significance overnight." 

The "obscure Yeltsin".... 

Well, if you had not been paying attention. 

There had, for example, been an election in which millions of Russians had voted, and a few other developments before that....