Yeltsin - Declining Health
The President's health is one of the most terrible secrets of the Russian authorities. This secret is kept holy, stronger than all military secrets combined. Hence the result is speculation, rumors and gossip.
The history of Yeltsin's illness, stored in the Central Clinical Hospital, counted many volumes at the time of his voluntary resignation. Roy Medvedev wrote in 2000 that Yeltsin's health problems began in the mid-1980s, when he headed the Moscow City Party Committee. In the evenings, he was tormented by headaches, which could only be removed with strong drink. Later, severe pains in the back were added after his spine was injured in an air accident. At that time, Yeltsin could rest in the day at the wellness center for higher party workers. Massage and bathing brought him back to normal, and he worked until late at night, surprising the staff of the city committee with his indefatigability.
When Yeltsin, after resigning as chairman of the State Construction Committee, went to America in 1989, when he was already running for parliament. And TV showed Yeltsin in a state of intoxication, allegedly. In the Soviet Union, then they said: if he has drunk, it is still unknown whether this is a plus or minus. There were rumors that it was the KGB's intrigues that they deliberately slowed down the shooting and so on.
After his resignation in 1987, Yeltsin had several bouts of severe depression, but it all passed away in 1989-1990 when he challenged Gorbachev in the struggle for power in the USSR and Russia. The year 1991 was a year of triumph for him. However, the political difficulties of 1992-1993 broke Yeltsin's health; he had problems with the heart, liver, lungs, even with the stomach. At times he lost his voice, he was chased by colds. In October 1991 Boris Yeltsin was offered a 2-week vacation after reports that the head of state had a chest pains. But in February 1992 Yeltsin told French television: "I have never had a heart problem, I take a cold shower every day, I'm in very good shape."
In domestic politics, none of Yeltsin's decisive actions during his first presidential term, that is, before he stopped drinking, was carried out drunk or under the influence of alcohol. But alcohol abuse harmed Yeltsin's presidency by other, roundabout ways. The craving for alcohol violated his schedule and prevented him from communicating normally with people. In July 1993, Ruslan Khasbulatov agreed with the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to mediate in the negotiations between Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet. ... but at the appointed time, Yeltsin was not able to talk, and Nazarbayev had to leave without ever seeing him. In 1994, the Moscow elite, gossiping about Yeltsin, began to call him "grandfather."
Since the beginning of 1995, the President's most important task was externalities, and the weaker and insecure he felt physically, the more emphasis was placed on demonstrating the ability to control events. It was during this period that a play began on the Russian stage, in which the main character, Yeltsin, desperately tried to imitate the activity. It was more and more not about reforms, but about survival. September 8, 1995 Yeltsin after a long silence and before going on vacation on a regular basis held a press conference. During this meeting with journalists, Yeltsin still looked dynamic, his gait, though slow, was still fairly stable. He demonstrated the speed of reaction and even the former rude humor.
Timothy Colton, the author of dozens of articles on modern Soviet and modern Russian history, Professor of Russian Studies, Head of the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University is convinced that in the second half of the 1990s, at the end of his presidency, Yeltsin no longer consumed alcohol on such a scale as this was in the early 1990s. In 1996, he no longer consumed alcohol each or almost every day in such quantities as it was before. Boris Nikolayevich almost completely stopped drinking, in 1996, after heart surgery, but this was not noticed. His doctors, Akchurin and Chazovthey, told him that if he continued to indulge his habit, it would mean death for him, and Yeltsin took these words seriously. He was instructed to limit himself to one glass of wine a day - a counsel that he followed rigorously. After the dismissal of Alexander Korzhakov and his associates around Yeltsin, there were no people who willingly played the part of his drinking companions.
The effect of Yeltsin's consumption of alcohol during his presidency was discussed in the West by a multitude of politicians and statesmen, scientists and specialists of various specialties: political scientists, Russian scholars, psychiatrists, behaviorists and others. In 2007, the British magazine The Economist wrote that most Russians despised Yeltsin, in particular "because of the humiliation that he believed they were subjected to by their drunken clownish antics."
In 1994 or in 1995, Yeltsin had his first heart attack, though few knew about it. In July 1995 the President of Russia was hospitalized with an attack of ischemic disease (there were problems with blood supply to the heart). In CDB, he spent two weeks, after which he went to a sanatorium, where he stayed for two more weeks. On October 26, 1995 Yeltsin was again hospitalized. The President lost consciousness, and was taken to the hospital on a helicopter. According to doctors, he suffered another attack of ischemic disease. A month later, the president was sent to a sanatorium and stayed there until the New Year.
There was no information about his real condition. This was reminiscent of Soviet times, when the health of the leader was one of the main state secrets. Some even began to question whether the president was alive at all. The question arose about his possible successor. Defense Minister Grachev stated that the army continues to obey the president. The nuclear suitcase was also in the hospital, next to Yeltsin's ward. In late December 1995 or early January 1996, Yeltsin was offered to undergo coronary angiography, to see if the coronary arteries were narrowed. The president and his family flatly refused.
There were many reasons why it was difficult for Yeltsin to win in the 1996 presidential election, but he decided to try his luck. The election campaign was complicated, and Yeltsin had to mobilize all his energy. He won the first round with a slight advantage, but a few days after that he had a new severe heart attack, which also managed to hide until the victory in the second round. Yeltsin did not go to the hospital these days, although his condition on some days seemed critical.
On June 28, 1996 Yeltsin canceled the meeting with the farmers, which was to take place between the two rounds of presidential elections. His assistants explained this fact to the president's cold. On August 2, 1996 Yeltsin's aides said that the president was experiencing a "colossal weakness" after his election campaign and needed a two-month rest.
On August 9, 1996 - For the first time since June 26, Yeltsin appeared in public in order to take the oath of office for the presidency. His presence at the ceremony lasted only 16 minutes, and the performance - only 45 seconds. The inauguration shown on TV terrified the whole country. The living corpse, the new Leonid Ilyich, swore loyalty to the people.
The operation on aortocoronary shunting became inevitable. On September 5, 1996 television companies distributed Yeltsin's interview in which he stated that he had given his consent to heart surgery. Yeltsin rejected proposals to do an operation in Germany or the US. On September 19, 1996 - Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said that a medical consultation will be held on September 25 to determine the date of the operation. On November, 5, 1996 the surgeon Rinat Akchurin successfully performed the coronary bypass surgery in the Russian Cardiology Center.
The operation was successful, but in the following years he was tormented by various ailments. The president, to take off the pain, continually takes narcotic drugs (promedol, baralgin, analgesic drugs).
"Yeltsin is more like a drinker than an alcoholic," American surgeon Michael Debakey said in an article published in the newspaper "Sunday Times" 13 November 1996. Boris Yeltsin, whose ability to drink vodka brought partners to the table in horror, was not an alcoholic, confirmed the American surgeon who examined the Russian leader and called him "a drink lover." Debakey, a brilliant Texan who became the pioneer of bypass operations on the heart, inspected Yeltsin last week. This surgeon denied the widely accepted view of the Russian president as a vodka soaked ruin.
Debakey did not see anything suspicious about Yeltsin's behavior in the last two years, when frequent disappearances of the leader from the eyes of the public and outlandish behavior at official ceremonies strengthened the belief that he was a slave to the bottle. "Anyone who holds a high position is prone to such rumors," continued Debakey, "you get information from the so-called" authoritative source, "and in fact from people who ... do not know what they're talking about."
The head of the opposition Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov, called Yeltsin "a drunkard, decayed, immoral person," unable to lead the state. On September 1, 1998, at a meeting of the State Duma Council: "The president lasted for two days absolutely drunk and insane ... We do not have a president, there's a drunk, insane person." On November 2, 1998, at the meeting of the Impeachment Commission: "The president does not manage anything, he can not go to work, he does not answer to the citizens, he drinks." On November 18, 1998, in the magazine "The Russian Federation Today": "There is no normal government in the country ... Everyone knows that Yeltsin drinks.Alcoholism is a diagnosis, not an insult. There is a law on the protection of the honor and dignity of the country."
The beginning of the end for Boris Nikolayevich was the fall in the bathroom of the hotel in Sardinia on September 7, 2005. He broke the neck of the left hip and on his return to Moscow had surgery on the joint. Specialists of the Central Clinical Hospital (TsKB) and the Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (CITO) took part in the examination and decision-making on the treatment of Yeltsin. For several months he walked with crutches, and then limped. Trauma limited his activity: he began to exercise less and gained weight. Yeltsin caught a cold, and this cold did not pass. Soon after returning to Moscow, on April 11, 2007, he was placed in the Central Clinical Hospital.
Russia's first freely elected president, Boris Yeltsin, died of heart failure 23 April 2007 at the age of 76. A Kremlin spokesman announced word of the former president's death just as many Russians were making their way home from work. Among the first to react to the news was former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, whom Yeltsin replaced in 1991. He said Mr. Yeltsin did a lot for Russia, even though, Gorbachev added, he committed serious errors.
Former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin credited Yeltsin with preventing a civil war in Russia, and risking himself and his career, when he stood atop a tank outside the Russian White House to resist an attempted Soviet coup in August, 1991. Stepashin urged Russians to remember the good work done by Yeltsin - work that pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a free-market economy.
But for the majority of Russians, Yeltsin's death went largely unnoticed. His rule is associated with disorder, with favoritism, with some drastic moves, which led to nothing.
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