Boris Yeltsin Resigns

Abstract

"I resign." Yeltsin repeated these words in his address to the citizens of Russia several times. The end of the year and the end of the century became for our country the end of the Yeltsin era, which had occupied ten years of the country's history and ended in his resignation on the last day of 1999. For the first time in the twentieth century, Russia saw an entire age disappear into the past with the thunder of a solemn salute, the sound of glasses clinking, and in the light of colorful fireworks, without revolution and bloodshed, without a palace coup or a conspiracy. Russia entered the new century with a new leader, Acting President Vladimir Putin, and this was received by almost the entire population of the country not as alarming news but as a New Year's gift of fate.