Midnight Diaries

"Today, on the last day of the outgoing century, I resign… Russia must enter the new millennium with new politicians, with new faces, with new intelligent, strong, energetic people, and we who have been in power for many years must go."

On December 31, 1999, Russian president Boris Yeltsin stunned the world by stepping down six months ahead of schedule. His decision was cloaked in secrecy, and his announcement rivaled the Eiffel Tower fireworks for dramatic effect.

In his new memoir, Yeltsin looks back on the struggles and upheavals in Russia over the last few years and his own role as the man who held the strings. Opening with his now famous Millennial Eve speech, he reflects on a decade of leadership, decisions, and crucial events, from the coup of 1991 to his first showdown with Parliament in 1993, Chechnya, and more. He ponders politics, his family, his relationship with Bill Clinton, and how he wants history to remember him. The style throughout is "vintage Yeltsin" - pithy, direct, anecdotal.

Midnight Diaries is the ultimate insider's story of the Russian Federation from 1991 - 1999. It's also the portrait of a man who, despite reactionary forces and the pull of communist doctrine, was determined to give his country and people a better future.