tv [untitled] January 31, 2011 10:30pm-11:00pm EST
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if you knew me from the least to. me on t.v. don't come. in again this is all see it in terms of the headlines that constantly. demonstrations continue to be true of this movements have begun to minimize and to have to get a new egyptian is no well behind it o'barr day this point to the shuttle we're going to try just achieve is well known internationally but is low profile the post office of being a broad subject is means that skepticism will be the man to take the place of president hosni mubarak's if you stop all. words that ukraine's prime minister is rewarded is essential to its top official up to six and snowden is not being
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seen in public for six months. on the danish consequence of their free speech accidents two was charged with raises book critical comments he made about islamic law as head of god said domestic violence occurred in areas donated by islamic culture and lawson although sister of his claims of one of the muslims. doesn't have lights now when they saw that june ended boris yeltsin became the first president of russia and today marks the eighty one of us are his next days we don't know any else and that tells us what the legacy of the controversial president left behind that's and i'm going to the shows coming up next. i am. hello again then the welcome to spotlight the interview shelf on our tilt i over
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today's show is a dedication to the first president of russia bar it's helped he would have been eighty today and this would have been one of those rare day that he'd spent together with his family his wife lady she never really tried to play first lady and did their relations were always away from then media spotlight today. is my guest on the dedication to the great love of her life. the charisma of the prison she also became the icon of the new russia from the wreckage of the soviet empire. he saw people adoring him new now inches and became less popular in his late presidency. boris yeltsin said the media freak and the media paid him back badly never missing a chance to sting him look guilty knew had the power to go through everything until
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his wife nineteen was near. thank you for being with us on the show today as we commemorate. i'd like to ask you do you remember the day when your husband came home as president. do you remember the late one nine hundred eighty s. and early one nine hundred ninety s. . russia was boiling. everyone was strongly politicized and wish to change is. boris yeltsin was one of the most prominent figures at the time. participated in rallies he too looked forward to change is. also. in the first place there was something he began with his original pronouncements were about the need for this
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country to live differently. and then there came the first elections. when hundreds of thousands of people attended rallies all over the country. that on the election day we were at home because we had voted early in the morning . but later in the day had a meeting with his support team and some other meetings in the evening when the vote count began and we were of course anxiously watching the returns come in. it goes without saying that we wanted to win. home and watching t.v. . at the end of the day when it became clear that the majority as the come showed it was for boris yeltsin and that he was winning in the first round we were of course very happy. late at night we had a little problem to celebration. it was quite an emotional moment.
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but the tension was immense and we were all up tight not knowing how things would shape out that were. the worst so many commissions at all polling stations watching that the ballot should unfold to the right way. you should remember those days. absolutely. of course all those commissions represented the communist because boris yeltsin had practically nobody to money toward the process but in the morning it was always a clear that he hadn't won in the first round so he just left for his office as usual and from that time on the family didn't see a lot of him did you. no we didn't and there was only work the met on sundays. introduced the institution of first lady in this country she was the first
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president's wife to start making public appearances she became a public person. yourself why has the institution as such feel to take root in russia did you really think about. no i never thought about that i just behaved the way i believed i should. if some official functions were held i was present if there were none i wasn't present if i had to attend some of em to loan when for example foreign presidents with wives were paying a visit to this country i did dot sometimes i accompanied them on various trips to some of russia's provinces. most of the events that were here in moscow. were visited hospitals schools often edges various centers and on the how i tried to act naturally because i had had no special schooling. do you think it is inevitable that people praise
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a leader when he's on top then torrents of fill some him after he steps down or is it some sort of compensation or balance maybe what do you think or does or involving prevail over praise you know it's not praise that i'm looking for i'm not saying yeltsin should be praised personally i don't enjoy that. listen we'll have to move in fifty years since the last year was had of this little of screeching and there was nothing of the kinds there nothing at all we didn't commit ourselves anything that would unwind this sort of massive abuse that was. a minimalist like all normal people and there was no problem without. but then we came here and it all began. with. as early as nine hundred eighty seven and the trial persisted into his presidency. this is why it was very
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hard to accept this torrent of injustice right away. and i knew very well. the things will end up this way you. know not that they will end up this way. but that it was a difficult period the yeltsin presidency was a very difficult and trying period. class i was well aware that people too were having it the hard way. their life was a very difficult one. you just said an amazing thing you said there was the period of presidency in yeltsin's life for me and for other people all over the world. the first president of russia ordinary people he was president and nobody else while to you it is but a small period an episode in his life is this how you see that. video now of
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course not i think it was in the new with period it went fast but it eclipsed everything else that. those were tremendously stressful years besides nine years this is a mythic and period by any measure. and while it was a stressful time ever since we moved to moscow in one thousand eighty five. when you personally think was the most important thing that yeltsin accomplished in his life which actually. well for me personally and for all our family and for all russian people i think he did the most important thing he gave people freedom you have no doubts about that this is the most important thing to you know i have no doubt i'm sure that what he did can never be revised. this country's past cannot be brought back. so that all you see he gave people freedom
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that is true but then the advantage of free market made millions of people poor the free press report quite a lot of painful critique on him and you mention that as there ever been any regret about that freedom that he gave to people do you remember in want economic situation the country was in the late one nine hundred eighty s. i mean one nine hundred eighty seven eighty eight eighty nine it was critical it was a time when there were ration cards and when there was nothing at all in stores and more importantly there was nothing left to stock them up when he became president in one thousand nine hundred one when what did he have to do. was sit and wait for write to me again after and i remember very well when president mitterrand came with a visit in one thousand nine hundred ninety one and then chancellor kohl came later . but they both said the same saying.
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no actually metron said that in one thousand nine hundred five when he came to russia to attend the b. day celebrations. but. he was already very ill at the time we had a long conversation and he said you know i came here because of your husband the war that you which i think mr president did everything possible to save people. not only in russia but also in europe and the whole world he said we him and to europe by guys had stopped giving money to go which of the time yeltsin started challenging him with the evidence and chancellor kohl said exactly the same thing he said and the u.s.s.r. was not repaying any loans so mitterrand sad can you imagine what it would have been if salman broke out in such
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a multinational country as yours it would have been much worse than yugoslavia. they were afraid there would be war no they were sure of that and we are a nuclear power and by containing all dhat and mr mitterrand's words that boris yeltsin not only saved russia but also europe and the world so. he also spotlight will be back shortly will continue this sort of it in less than a minute so stay with us. the arab . wealthy british style. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy
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to spotlight time album and often just to remind you that my guest on the show today is. the widow of the late russian president boris yeltsin. mrs yeltsin your husband ascended the political summit swiftly and i witnessed. after that however his popularity began to fall prior to that there was no such tradition in russia to evaluate popularity but no this was happening before our eyes the poor rating was following their free press which created began to attack him and his family. did he personally feel hurt was he offended how did he
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react. all he was an intelligent and wise person and a real statesman who. was in knew that our old saying the biggest cause is to live at the time of reforms. or. especially if you're so flaunts to change right and he was well aware of what he was risking the guru dar was much criticized for what was cool shocks are a pain war. however due to the shortage of food those measures were inevitable. today some say they should have done it gradually. but how can a starving person wait for six months to be fed lordly or that. urgent measures had to be taken which meant shock therapy. at the. pumps there could have been a better name for that therapy but essentially the task was to radically change the
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situation in the country over a short period of time. i remember boris yeltsin much the head of his cabinet and had a very long conversation darr was a top expert on economics and he explained the situation to yeltsin very clearly. more results in himself was very competent in economic affairs and he understood gaidar perfectly that's why he made the decision that transition to market economy was the only possible way and today we see he was right. as the way it was carried out not gradually but a twangs well look at the result the country did go through this and survived and by nineteen ninety three the market was being filled with product. and one boris yeltsin hundred over the country to lead him and put in our market was nearly the same as in europe with everything from supermarkets to boutiques in
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a madrassa had become a european country. well now let's take a look at the years of boris yeltsin presidency in a report by spotlights to me that. if you go for worse yeltsin. the first leaders you get what's called his funny moment bluffing dancing trying to can. doing other things none of his predecessors had ever done this eccentric behavior when delling history but that's just a tiny part of a complex personality who brought so much change to his country from the very beginning of yeltsin's political career his image was far from that of a typical soviet bureaucrat mingling with the crowd was his normal practice in one thousand one to one he became the first active president of the russian federation
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two months later amid a coup by a group of common is told linus urged people to defend democracy and that's what declaring illegal all the decisions in decreased by the state of emergency committee yeltsin issued a ban on the communist party which added to the euphoria of the freedom at the time however this was followed by a much less popular decision to dissolve the us a saw and a real blow to yeltsin's popularity was the economic reforms of the one nine hundred ninety s. labeled shock therapy. nineteen ninety three so violent confrontation when yeltsin eventually made a decision to shell the russian white house. the new constitution adopted afterwards would give more power to the president yeltsin received support from world leaders russia's relations with the e.u. and the us and proved a great toy he stood up for freedom and democracy and openness he really believes
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that russia couldn't go back to communism or back further to extreme rationalism what the west could never forgive yeltsin for do was war in chechnya in one thousand and two for more schools sent troops there in an attempt to restore control over the territory. in one thousand men to see. it contained for his second term and was reelected though the vote was not so much for him but mostly against he's come in they stopped. second term was marred by serious health problems and the reddick behavior. in one thousand nine hundred nine he chose his successor and announced his resignation. then this one as. you said very see olson was a wise politician. many in politics including gorbachev however is it true that he's political moves were based mostly on intuition or did he consider his every
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move thoroughly you know how he need to sit better than anybody you know what was he like a chess master or not i conned call him unpredictable you never acted on the spur of the moment of course the mess have been some situation where he had to act quickly but was he a pulse of. it would always think through all his moves and his intuition was outstanding he had gone through good training. no ten years he was in charge of a major industrial region of the globe the second that in the soviet union in terms of industrial output which means a lot. during that time the region invariably achieved a good result which also means a lot had to make a very serious decisions and he never made any mistakes during that time. the
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regional executive committee chairman often asked me take good care of boris because he sat there had never been a single case where he would make a bad decision that to you means a lot. so his reputation over politician is false. he was a very serious and thoughtful person each time he had to make an important decision he would sound out other people without telling them about his own position. all he had his way of doing got. people's advice he would always discuss his decisions both instead love going to moscow with his team. and he had a very good team with the argo gaidar viktor chernomyrdin alexander the last in an entirely. bunch of. the were all on the team and many others some of them must
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still working. they often had a very heated discussions and boris yeltsin would always hear out everyone. of course sometimes if he was convinced that his decision was good and if you managed to persuade his team he made executive decisions but those decisions of course were not made on the spur of the moment. and said he wanted. with a new president. in fact he was mistaken because the new millennium did not start until a year later. anyway was it an emotional move on his part when he mentioned. part of a big political gain maybe even handing over the authority. to bush. was those who would want attorney rate also the year two thousand was considered a landmark in a way that the beginning of
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a new era. under the new millennium was not far away. so it was a nice way to do it. his biggest concern that was the legacy and should take place in a calm atmosphere and that's what he was thinking about this then yes but still he wanted the person he endorsed to be elected without turmoil. and when he chose the duma put ten. his first appointed him prime minister and people came to know and understand. once more if the elton's thought that pushing was becoming popular with people he stepped down. so the decision was not impulsive either everything had been formally considered after he resigned we didn't see much of him spent most of the time here in this house did he change march after his resignation
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. he did not change at all how can a person change he never changed he didn't change when he became president and he didn't change after he resigned as to what he did his lifestyle was pretty active yes we traveled a lot to round russia and abroad. for example we went on fishing trips to norway and iceland it was fun when chirac invited us to stay nice for a week. so you traveled what we did of course would also traveled much during his presidency but at that time you could only see the world through the window of his car as those were official visits. my next question may sound odd but are you glad that he was able to spend his last years with you. of kools
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all of us in the family was so happy. when not on a trip he was always with me to spend time with his grandchildren and great grandchildren. all enjoyed being with him. it was interesting to talk to him and just spend time with him all he knew hard to make people happy would go. fishing together for example at the pub is it true that after his resignation he lost half of those whom he had considered he's friends. said absolutely not all the friends that had been with him during his presidency remained with him. even today his friends stay in touch with me. there is mrs yeltsin you look very well your eyes are kind of pride.
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i mean you were happy to see so we're like contrail is sad i'm happy today because my husband is not with us but i'm happy passon because i have wonderful daughter is wonderful sons in law so wonderful grandchildren and great grandchildren all these things naturally make me happy and i have to hold on for the sake of my children and for the memory of boris yeltsin through as long as i live the memory of him is quite different because hey and myself are one and for me i consider myself happy of course well because for more than fifty yes i lived with boris yeltsin when this outstanding extraordinary and wonderful pass and i'm supposed to pursue both sure thank you very much for being with us in just a load that my guest on the show today was like yeltsin that with the late bush
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