The funeral of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin will be attended by numerous former and current heads of state and government from around the world. The president of the Germany Horst Keller, Italian Senator Julio Andreotti, Britain’s Prince Andrew and former prime Minister Sir John Major, former president of Latvia Guntis Ulmanis, president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, the prime minister of Tajikistan Akil Akilov, the Ukraine prime minister Viktor Yanukovych and the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko are to assist at the funeral. Former US presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton will lead the US delegation. The Council of the Russian Federation will be either present at the ceremony with its full complement.
Having spent 12 days in the hospital, Boris Yeltsin, 76, died on April 23 at 15:45 from heart failure.
Vladimir Putin was stunned by the news, but decided not to change his time-table and provided all scheduled meetings. Then he postponed the traditional presidential address to the Federal Assembly and made an appeal to the people. “A man has passed away thanks to whom a whole new epoch has started. A new, democratic Russia was born, a free state open to the world. A state in which power truly belongs to the people” - he said.
“We knew Boris Nikolyavevich being a courageous and at the time heartfelt and sincere person. He was a direct and brave national leader and in this, his positions were always open and honest to the very limit. Boris Yeltsin took upon himself full responsibility for everything he did, for everything he strove for. He tried to do everything and did everything for the sake of the country, and for the sake of millions of Russians. And all misfortunes and all sorrows, the difficulties and the problems of the people, he invariably took to heart.”
A host of warm and kind words in memory of the former Russia’s president were said.
The former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev. “There were indeed discords between us and that had influence on what was happening in the country, but now I understand, that it was a prosperity of our country, what we both wanted and all we both did we did for the welfare of the Russian people.”
The head of the Unified Energy System of Russia Anatoly Chubais. He brought an un-free country to freedom; from a country in which lies were simply routine, commonplace . . . . to a country that is trying to live by the truth. There are a few figures in the history of Russia equal to Yeltsin, Peter the Great, for example. And, sure, he took everything close to his heart; nobody can comprehend what it has cost him.
Yevgeny Yasin, the head of The Higher School of Economics, served as economy minister under Yeltsin. "I think he was an outstanding person in the history of Russia, he took key decisions in the second half of the 20th century."
"These decisions will determine Russia’s future for a long time. I think he displayed the statesman's highest virtue -- the ability to take responsible decisions while sacrificing his reputation, his career."
“Yeltsin improved market economy and we got perspectives for the future development. Under him we vindicated democratic reforms and it was over with the soviet regime”
Now everybody accuses him of assault of the White House. I have never did that and I think that in some cases one must be able to gave several lives as a sacrifice to save a great many and a country in the whole.
Many Russians think of Yeltsin as of a person who brought chaos and uncertainty to the country. But Yasin claims, it’ll change in some time: "I think they will remember him negatively for a while, and then they will understand his role. Maybe historians of the next generation will give it the assessment it deserves."
The former vice-premier Boris Nemtsov. “Yeltsin has given us freedom and we must appreciate this, he hated any kinds of censorship, so there was a freedom of speech in the country. He tolerated his opponents, there was multiple parties in the Parliament. All that will be stamped in courses of history, as well as the fact that all his achievements have been abolished by his successor. And to save his achievements is the best thing we can do to honour his memory.
Leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party Nikita Belykh. He was a controversial figure, but, certainly, a great politician with considerable positive potential.
Leader of the Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinsky. “The time will give the real appraisal of this figure. But now it is important to remember that Yeltsin has always won over his opponents but never annihilated them. It is his personal merit, that the politics of the 90-s did not inhere revenge, squaring of accounts and physical destruction of political opponents”
State Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov. It is too early to make an appraisal to his activity. He will certainly stay in the history of Russia, although the period of his presidency was not the best.
Leader of the Communist party Gennady Zyuganov. I have no good words for him, and bad words I do not want to say today.
Egor Ligachev, former member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, State Duma deputy “All his activity was destructive. Until now million people are struggling for survival, for living.”
Metropolitan Kirill. In difficult minute, in decisive moment he managed to comprehend the will of his people and rule the country. That demanded courage and decisiveness.
Ex-leader of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich. I consider him to be a person who has made a lot for Belarus. Being a first democratically elected Russian president, he signed a pack on the Belarus’ independency. He deserves a monument in our country. The USSR had to come apart but it is his merit that all that happened without great bloodshed.”
The president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko “He was a real leader of a nation, a real patriot, a prominent statesman who ached for Russia and Russian people with all his heart. All the Belarus people will remember him, he was a true friend and great politician.”
The former Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk. Like all great politician he was a controversial person. Boris Nikolaevich stands in the first row of that people who have opened countries of the former USSR for new life. He is a prominent and original person and there are no doubts that he is a real son of Russia. I remember, before sighing any document he has always asked, could it entail any loss for Russia’s national interests. It is a question that every real president must ask.
The Ukrainian president Viktor Yuschenko. A great democrat, an outstanding politician has left. His contribution in the renascence of Russia, consolidation of democratic principles such as freedom, general equality and sovereignty cannot be overestimated.
Former president of Georgia Eduard Shevarnadze. I knew him since he was a first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee. We were very close at the time, he arrived in Georgia twice, we were friends. Then he was promoted, soon became a president, we met often. He made a lot to strength a democracy in Russia. We were close friends, I know personally all his family and I was sadden to know about his decease.
Former prime minister of Italia Silvio Berluskony. Having learned about Boris Yeltsin’s death I felt deep sorrow. He has undoubtedly left a trace in the history. He courageously set Russia on the way of freedom and democracy. In the result in 1994 the Russia was accepted in the Group of Seven that became the Group of Eight.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Boris Yeltsin was an outstanding person in both Russian and world politics, a steadfast fighter for democracy and freedom and true friend of Germany.
The president of the European Commission Josй Manuel Barrosso. Mr. Yeltsin was a key reference in the post-Communist transition in Russia. As President he had enormous challenges and difficult mandates but he certainly managed to bring East and West closer together and helped replace confrontation by cooperation. He is best remembered for standing up to the coup d'йtat aimed at restoring a dictatorial regime in Russia. With great personal courage, his defence of freedom was widely recognised. The Commission sends its condolences to Mr. Yeltsin's family, the Russian authorities and the people of Russia".
A tycoon in disgrace Boris Berezovsky. Russia has lost a great reformer. Nobody has made for Russia more than Yeltsin. He was a unique man, absolutely Russian in his soul, impulsive and wise.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he was "very saddened" by the death of a "remarkable man" who played a "vital role" in Russian history.
The US President George Bush. “President Yeltsin was an historic figure who served his country during a time of momentous change," Bush said in a statement. "He played a key role as the Soviet Union dissolved, helped lay the foundations of freedom in Russia, and became the first democratically elected leader in that country's history."
The U.S. Department of State Secretary Condoleezza Rice President Yeltsin will also be remembered fondly by the American people for establishing good relations between our nations after many years of conflict.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Yeltsin “an important figure in Russian history.” “No Americans, at least, will forget seeing him standing on the tank outside the White House (the Russian parliament building) resisting the coup attempt,” Gates said while visiting Moscow.
Newspapers all over the world responded at the news about decease of the former Russian president and published articles most of which set Yeltsin in a row of the most prominent politicians of the XX century.
The Washington Post indicates an ambiguity of his role: “In launching a war against the breakaway southern region of Chechnya in 1994, he was responsible for the violent deaths of more Russian citizens than any Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin. As president, he tolerated -- even authorized -- the excesses of a system in some ways as corrupt and morally adrift as the one it replaced.” His last mistake he made in December 1999, “choosing as his successor Vladimir Putin, an obscure former KGB official. Putin was elected president the following March and has reversed many of the democratic gains of the Yeltsin years, encountering little resistance from Russians.”
“Yet like the autocratic Peter, Yeltsin took hold of a stultifying, hermetically closed country and flung open its doors to fresh ideas, methods and influences.” – remarks the Washington Post.
Le Figaro writes that, although Yeltsin has made many mistakes, he will be remembered as a “kind tsar”. In spite of the chaos of the early 90s the first free elected president has set democracy in the country, established contacts with Europe, with the US and, in contrast to Slobodan Miloshevich, managed to disband the Soviet Empire without bloodshed.
The Financial Times calls Boris Yeltsin “a flamboyant leader”, who “had the physical and moral strength to bear on his shoulders the colossal burden of a country in a ferment of transition, its economy struggling with the twin tasks of discarding a tenacious old system and adjusting to an unfamiliarly fast-moving new one. At the beginning of his rule he was able to grasp, either instinctively or through a quick intelligence, much of what was required. But lacking discipline and consistency, he did not set in place, much less sustain, the necessary policies to see his insights through. Increasingly he was forced to observe a country unable, in his period, to reform itself in a coherent way.”