In the 1980s I had occasion to visit East Germany. The frontline of Reagan’s Evil Empire. I drove my orange VW Beetle into East Berlin. No traffic other than rickety Trabants. I parked before the old Reichstag. No parking meters. I bought everyone in the Karl Marx Communal Bar a round. The bill came to 5DMs.
The Evil Empire wasn’t all bad, however when Gorbachev banned alcohol sales, the USSR imploded on itself and a president was elected by the people.
Boris Yeltsin.
The outcast from the Politburo defied the Soviets seeking a redux of the USSR.
In August 1991 the commies staged a coup d’etat against Gorbachev. Army units surrounded the Russian White House. Threats of a massacre were issued. The people within the building quailed with fear.
Not Yeltsin.
The silver-haired president chugged a bottle of vodka and stormed out of the building to stand on a T-72 tank and rally the nation against the past becoming the future.
The media made fun of his drinking after he was too drunk to meet with George Bush in Iceland. Personally he was my hero for blowing off the father of GW Bush. The peasant from Sverdlovsk divined the future and said, “Hooy na ny!”
Better drunk than have to endure an hour with that Perdoon stary Bariga or old fart drug-dealer.
Plus Yeltsin wasn’t scared to boogie.
But it ain’t easy drinking like him and on New Year’s Eve 1999, Yeltsin shocked the world with a surprise resignation.
“I feel like a runner who has just completed a super-marathon of 40,000 kilometers. I gave it my all. I put my whole heart and soul into running my presidential marathon. I honestly went the distance. If I have to justify anything, here is what I will say: If you think you can do it better, just try. Run those 40,000 kilometers. Try to do it faster, better, more elegantly, or more easily. Because I did it.”
Hero of drunks everywhere.
RIP
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