Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin – a Russian political and state figure, the first President of the Russian Federation. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was born in the village of Butka in the Ural region (now Sverdlovsk Oblast). In 1949 he enrolled in the Faculty of Industrial and Civil Engineering at the Ural Polytechnic Institute named after S.M. Kirov and graduated in 1955.

 

After graduating from the institute, Yeltsin gained experience in various construction trades: he worked as a bricklayer, concrete worker, plasterer and crane operator, gradually rising to the positions of foreman and construction manager. In 1961 he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); by 1963 he became chief engineer of the Sverdlovsk House-Building Combine, and three years later he headed this major construction enterprise.

 

Yeltsin's political career began in 1968. From 1976 he served as First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU, and in 1981 he became a member of the CPSU Central Committee. In subsequent years he held high party positions, including head of the construction department of the CPSU Central Committee and First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. In 1986 Yeltsin became a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.

 

In 1990 Boris Nikolayevich was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in a contested election and left the CPSU. In 1991 Yeltsin was elected the first President of the RSFSR. On December 31, 1999 he announced his resignation, prematurely transferring his powers to his successor, Vladimir Putin. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007 of cardiovascular and multiple organ failure and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.