Boris Yeltsin

president of Russia

Also known as: Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin

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Last updated

Apr. 19, 2026 •History

Boris Yeltsin (born February 1, 1931, Sverdlovsk [now Yekaterinburg], Russia, U.S.S.R.—died April 23, 2007, Moscow, Russia) was a Russian politician who became president of Russia in 1990. In 1991 he became the first popularly elected leader in the country’s history, guiding Russia through a stormy decade of political and economic retrenching until his resignation on the eve of 2000. Yeltsin attended the Urals Polytechnic Institute and worked at various construction projects in the Sverdlovsk oblast...