Boris YeltsinBoris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Борис Николаевич Ельцин, bɐˈrjis njɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvjɪtɕ ˈjeljtsɨn; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the first president of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism. Yeltsin was born in Butka, Ural Oblast. He grew up in Kazan and Berezniki.
Russian oligarchsRussian oligarchs (oligarkhi) are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials (mostly in Russia and Ukraine) as a means to acquire state property. The Russian oligarchs emerged as business entrepreneurs under Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary 1985–1991) during his period of market liberalization.
President of RussiaThe president of the Russian Federation (Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the executive head of state of Russia; the president leads the executive branch of the central government of Russia and is the commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. It is the highest office in Russia. The modern incarnation of the office emerged from the president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In 1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the RSFSR, becoming the first non-Communist Party member to be elected into a major Soviet political role.
YekaterinburgYekaterinburg (jᵻˈkætərᵻnbɜːrɡ ; Екатеринбург), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk (, 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The city is located on the Iset River between the Volga-Ural region and Siberia, with a population of roughly 1.5 million residents, up to 2.2 million residents in the urban agglomeration. Yekaterinburg is the fourth-largest city in Russia, the largest city in the Ural Federal District, and one of Russia's main cultural and industrial centres.
Vladimir Putin'Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin' (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012. Putin has held continuous positions as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012. Putin worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg.
Russian Armed ForcesThe Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Вооружённые Си́лы Росси́йской Федера́ции, Vooružjonnyje Síly Rossíjskoj Federácii), commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military of Russia. In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with 1.15 million and at least two million reserve personnel. Russia plans to expand its active personnel force to 1.5 million by 2026, which will make it the third largest in the world, after China and India.
