As Yeltsin Lies, Russia Sighs For Freedom
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday April 26, 2007
BEFORE Boris Yeltsin's death on Monday many Russians had tended to forget his 1991 rolein bringing down communist rule, overcome as they were with resentment for the economic hardship into which he plunged them.
But as they filed in their thousands to Christ the Saviour Cathedral, where Russia's first democratically elected president lay in state, they carried the traditional bunches of flowers in even numbers for the dead. There was a sense Russia was starting to appreciate the leader it had lost. "I feel very sad today," said Vitaly Mikhailovich, a teacher who in 1996 interrupted his holiday in the countryside to vote for Mr Yeltsin a second time and help prevent a communist comeback. "I then spent the next few years regretting having voted for him. My own life became a struggle for survival. But it is always the way with us Russians. We criticise people harshly while they are alive and love them after they have died. Now I can say that I respected Boris Nikolayevich and what he stood for." The President, Vladimir Putin, under whose rule Russia has gained economic stability but lost media freedom, has postponed until today a scheduled state-of-the-nation address.Mr Putin has been taking an increasingly uncompromising line with the West and the domestic opposition. Analysts had said they expected to hear a hawkish note in the speech. But Mr Yeltsin's death and the arrival of foreign leaders, including the former US presidents George Bush snr and Bill Clinton, may prompt a rethink, and some extra work for the Kremlin's speechwriters.The crowds queuing outside Christ the Saviour Cathedral gave the lie to the idea that Russians have lately become indifferent to their freedom. "You can see from my age that I was born under Stalin," said Valentin Golobokov. "I grew up under Khrushchev but Boris Nikolayevich was the only leader I really respected. "People talk about his mistakes but they were insignificant. The war in Chechnya was as much the fault of the Chechens as his fault. "His achievement was that he broke communism, which was the scourge of the planet."Karina Vladimirovna was carrying carnations to add to the growing pile of flowers under the gold cupola where Mr Yeltsin's polished coffin stood open. "I am here because for seven years I was able to live in the United States and then I was able to come home," she said. "That's freedom and that's what Yeltsin gave me. He made some mistakes, of course, but he did far more good than harm." The cathedral stayed open through the night. One man said he had been on the barricades with Mr Yeltsin when he resisted the attempted coup of 1991. A woman read aloud a poem she had just written for Mr Yeltsin. A couple of drunks tried to gain access to the church but were frogmarched away by police. The big man lying in the coffin would probably have let them in.In death, Mr Yeltsin may again influence events in his country by reminding Russians not only of the price, but also of the value, of freedom.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald