Tank Commander On Yeltsin's Finest Moment

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin died Monday at age 76.

The first freely elected president of Russia, Yeltsin was widely admired for his valor in opposing a 1991 hard-line coup attempt, scrambling atop a tank to rally democratic opposition.

Boris Tesyolkin, the commander of that tank, talked to CBS News about Yeltsin's life, career and impact on Russia.

From those three days in August 1991, I remembered most clearly how Yeltsin climbed on top of our tank and shook hands with every single member of our tank crew. I remember those moments very clearly. Everything else may be blurred, but I remember that handshake as if it has just happened and my hand is still warm from holding his.

Maybe I could not realize everything back when it was happening, but today I know I was right in the midst of the most dramatic and pivoting events in Russia's contemporary history – and it was Boris Yeltsin who held my hand and took me there.

Back in August 1991 Yeltsin was not a bigwig for us – ordinary officers. I did not even think he was anything special: to me, he was just an ordinary Moscow city party boss who threw his party card on the desk in a sign of protest and got fired for that.

As president, he was quite a decent politician. As any other politician, of course, he had his good moments and bad ones, too. He made mistakes both in domestic and foreign policies, but he also scored victories.

Yeltsin was a very charismatic leader – I felt his charisma on me when he addressed the crowd from the armor of my tank. A young lieutenant back then, I caught myself feeling ready to drop everything and run and do like Yeltsin was saying. As an officer, I was almost charmed by Yeltsin's readiness to take personal risks – Yeltsin was not afraid to risk his own life and walk out without guards and unarmed, climb on a tank and speak to people. It was a very courageous move which I, as an officer, thought very highly of.

However, Yeltsin was not as successful in running the country on a day-to-day basis. His presidency did not begin well for my family. Thus, for instance, my parents who are still alive, lost all their savings under Yeltsin, everything they had been saving for decades during the Soviet rule. And they lost everything overnight. Naturally, this did not make Boris Nikolayevich any more popular with my family members – all of us thought very negatively about him.

But one should realize that Yeltsin already inherited this country from his predecessors in a terrible condition. And all of us should be grateful to Yeltsin that he had the guts to accept that broken mechanism and even tried to fix it. We should all be grateful to Yeltsin – I do not know how, but somehow he prevented us from sliding into an abyss. He was not always perfectly successful at everything he tried to do, but at least he managed to stave off the most horrible things – like a fratricide or famine.

Sometimes, Yeltsin's positive achievements were eclipsed by his notorious antics and very erratic behavior. Yeltsin, indeed, was an extraordinary person, if not to say peculiar. On some occasions, instead of behaving like a president of a country of more than a hundred million, he behaved like a poorly mannered guy from the sticks. We all remember those often embarrassing TV reports when he tried to play the buffoon in situations which required a different approach.

But despite all his shortcomings, failures and mistakes, Yeltsin will be remembered largely as a positive political figure in Russia. He was the person who bore the ultimate responsibility for what was happening in the country back then. When he signed those documents that certified the termination of the Soviet Union, he knew very well what he was doing and what the consequences of his actions could be. But he was ready to try and he had political will to do it.

Today's Russia is on the right course and this is the course that President Yeltsin set it on back in 1991 – he laid the foundation. Without him, we cannot even be sure where we would be today.

Yeltsin was an ordinary Russian muzhik – he tried hard to do his best for the people, for the country. And whatever he did, he was doing the best he knew how. One could try to criticize Yeltsin today for a number of things – and maybe for a good reason – but you cannot take away one thing from him – he was always putting his heart and soul into whatever he was doing, he was always sincere in everything.
Svetlana Berdnikova, Alexei Kuznetsov and Dave Grout