Bye Bye Boris or is that Bye Bye Yeltsin

I am back. Though I want to go into the Buffalo stories, not that there really are any, I will do that later this week. Today must be dedicated to the passing of Boris Yeltsin. With his passing, vodka sales and consumption in Russia has declined ten fold.

I will remember on the tank, riding to the rescue, when the military and other Communists tried to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev back in 1991. In fact, they functionally did get rid of Gorby as he was then too "weak" to run the fallen empire. Yeltsin stood up to the would be usurpers of power and took a stand for the people. It would have been seen as a brave move, if he were not vodkaed (I have turned vodka into a verb) at the time.

It was a turning point point in Russian history. Then, Yeltsin would lead a reformist government. Of course, it was one rampant with Cowboy capitalist and the rise of the so-called oligarchs, men who became mega-wealthy when they took/acquired formerly state assets for a song (or bottle of vodka, man, I keep belaboring that point, don't I?).

Of course, the pains of moving to a captialist society with the rule of law from a communist/socialist society with the rule of the Communist party and the KGB watching was difficult and fraught with pain. As Yeltsin weakened both physically (the drink?) and politically, he made a deal with the Devil. This allowed Vladimir Putin, a former KGB operative, to take over.

He has done his best to restore Russia's rightful place in the world, which I am not sure what that is, by cracking down on the Oligarchs (see Mikhail Khordokovsky languish in a Russian jail on trumped up charges and found guilty by a kangaroo court for daring to oppose Putin and his former KGB minions) and getting the state involved in any and all resource deals. This way, Russia benefits from the rise in oil and natural gas prices and basically "steals" the necessary techonology from Western companies to produce and move the stuff.

That is life, I guess. Yeltsin was an historic figure for a short time. He did some good and could not fight off the forces of "evil" to get Russia to capitalistic nirvana. Of course, unlike China, Russia never had a mercantile history. They went from one form of autocratic rule to another (serfdom under the Czars to forced communism and such luminaries as Lenin, Stalin, and Brezhnev).

I guess Russian history can be boiled down to vodka and big, burly, bushy eyebrows. That about sums things up, at least for me. I will miss that white haired, vodka swilling, blini and alcohol smelling dude.

There. Now for the title, which has a more Broadway musical feeling, "Bye Bye Boris" or "Bye Bye Yeltsin"? I am also open to suggestions.

Ciao!