Who is he?

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician. He became the first President of the Russian Federation in 1991 and served until 1999. Originally he was Mikhail Gorbachev's supporter, under the perestroika reforms Yeltsin emerged as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents.

On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), which was one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union at that time. On the 25th of December, 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved and Yeltsin remained the president of the newly independent Russian state. He was reelected in 1996. In 1999 voluntarily resigned from the post after nine years, leaving the job to Vladimir Putin.

In 2001 Yeltsin was given Russia's highest award known as "Order of Service to the Fatherland, First Degree."

At the age of 76, Boris Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007 of congestive heart failure in Moscow, Russia.