RUSSIA'96: THE PEOPLE CHOOSE

YELTSIN HAS ONLY BEGUN TO REALIZE HOW UNPOPULAR HE IS. WILL RUSSIANS PICK ZYUGANOV, AND A RETURN TO THE BAD OLD DAYS?

This was clearly not what Boris Yeltsin expected. On May 3, a bright and unseasonably warm day, the President of Russia traveled about 160 miles northeast of Moscow to Yaroslavl, an industrial city known as part of the "golden ring" of ancient fortified towns that formed the historic heart of Russia. Before the 10-hour tour, Yeltsin's campaign handlers described Yaroslavl as "one of the nation's most stable" places, code for an area presumed sympathetic to Yeltsin. Yaroslavl was the first town outside the capital that he visited after the unsuccessful 1993 rebellion failed to dislodge him from the Kremlin. Back then,...

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