Boris Yeltsin — "The reforms are painful, but they are necessary."
The reforms are painful, but they are necessary.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Boris Yeltsin
"The greatest victory is to defeat the enemy without fighting."
"The main problem with being president is the constant sense that you are inside a glass bowl for everyone to see, or in a kind of barometric chamber with an artificial atmosphere where you must stay a…"
"I have no regrets. I did what I had to do."
"The main thing is to love your country. And to serve it with all your heart."
"I am a man of the people. I came from the people. And I will always serve the people."
About Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007)
First president of post-Soviet Russia (1991-1999), who climbed atop a tank to defy the August 1991 coup and oversaw the chaotic privatization of the 1990s. Closely associated with Mikhail Gorbachev (his predecessor and rival reformer). For an intellectual contrast, see Gennady Zyuganov, Russian Communist Party leader — Zyuganov came within 3 percentage points of beating the ailing Yeltsin in the 1996 presidential runoff — the closest free election Russia has had, and arguably the moment that decided whether Russia would reverse to communism or continue down the path that led to Putin.