This ambiguous personality will forever remain in history as the first President of the Russian Federation. The topic of the article is interesting facts about Yeltsin, included in the top of the most unexpected stories of the main figure of the 90s.
Childhood
It is interesting that even in childhood, the future head of the Russian Federation could lose his life twice. The first time was during baptism, where he was named Boris. The childhood of Yeltsin, born in 1931 in the Ural Region, took place in the Perm Territory, where he graduated from high school. His parents were from peasants, believers, so immediately decided to baptize the baby. A sacrament was performed in a closed church, where many people gathered. The line reached the Yeltsins only in the afternoon. For the service, the priest was brought moonshine, which he immediately drank. By the time the future president was baptized, he was already unsteady on his feet. Having lowered the child into the font with holy water, he was distracted by a conversation with the parishioners and almost drowned the baby. Mother in time noticed that he sank to the bottom, drowning in water, and pulled him out in time.
Boris Nikolaevich was a mischievous child, he knew how to fend for himself. He went in for sports - volleyball. There is a known fact when in one of the fights a teenager was killed by a nose swab. The future president lived all his life without resorting to rhinoplasty. The second case where he risked his own life was the one when a teenager lost his fingers. Many remember Yeltsin by their absence on his left hand.
Description in Confession
In his book of memoirs, Yeltsin himself said the following: in the postwar years, the territory of the local church was given over to the warehouse. Ammunition was stored there, guarded by three rows of wire and real sentries. According to the charter, they had to shoot at everyone who was at the warehouse. Yeltsin was a poor guy — how many times he and the guys had to take part in the "district to district" fights! So in this situation, friends decided to get behind the grenades to study how they work.
Young Yeltsin personally climbed. According to him, he managed to cut through the window grill while the guard did a round on the other side, and pulled out a couple of RGD-33. Having left the city at a distance of 60 km, friends decided to take them apart. And again, the future president of the Russian Federation demonstrated leadership qualities. Having sent the guys away, for about a hundred meters, he began to pound the grenade with a hammer, without taking out the fuse. So there was an explosion that severed two fingers on his left hand and the phalanx of the third. They were removed already in the hospital, where friends took Yeltsin, several times losing consciousness on the way.
In the future, the injury became the reason why Boris Nikolaevich avoided military service.
Other versions
Yeltsin's fingers interested biographers. Not everyone agrees with the version that the president himself presented in his memoirs. In "Soviet Civilization", a book by the theoretical scientist S. G. Kara-Murza, a chemist by education, an expert assessment of this fact is given. Sergei Georgievich believes that the rebel president was created the image of the Hun destroyer, so a similar story was born. If it had taken place in reality, then the injuries of Boris Nikolaevich would have been even more serious.
There are other versions of how Yeltsin lost his fingers. History is silent about how a grenade fell into his hands, but, rather, a hammer blow fell either on the fuse, or the grenade somehow got into the fire.
Other interesting facts
At the age of 35, the talented engineer of Sverdlovsk DSK was introduced to the Order of Lenin. But Yeltsin did not receive the award, as there was an accident with a five-story new building. The house collapsed on the eve of the change.
1987 entered history as the year of confrontation between Yeltsin and Gorbachev. For the first time criticizing the current president of the country, Boris Nikolayevich lost his post of First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the ruling party. Heavily defeated, he tried in the hospital to take his own life with ordinary scissors.
Yeltsin’s first visit to the United States in 1989 ended in scandalous press reports. He was of a private nature. Arriving in Baltimore, the future president addressed the need right at the airport, urinating on the wheel of the plane.
Yeltsin’s fingers played a trick on him already as president. At one of the official meetings, he pinched the stenographer. This moment was recorded by cameras and shown throughout the country. In addition to playfulness and alcohol abuse, the president committed shocking acts that went down in history. For example, in 1992, during a visit to Kyrgyzstan, Yeltsin played on spoons using Askar Akayev’s head .
Since 1992, the country was congratulated not by the president of the country, but by the satirist Zadornov. Yeltsin’s disappearance was explained by work with documents at the cottage. Such facts domestically and internationally undermined the authority of the state, so after his death, the Communists refused to honor the memory of the ex-president in the State Duma. It is curious that Yeltsin’s fingers became a problem after his death. In Yekaterinburg, Georgy Frangulyan created a monument where the president’s right hand was injured.