Russians will hardly be shocked by the news that their president is fond of the bubbly. But Korzhakov’s portrayal of Yeltsin as unstable and suicidally depressed is far more jarring. Korzhakov recounts one night in 1990 when he found Yeltsin at a police station, wet and drunk and wearing only his underwear and a policeman’s tunic. (Yeltsin claimed the KGB had tried to drown him.) Two years later, Korzhakov claims, Yeltsin tried to commit suicide by locking himself in a sauna.
Russians are taking Korzhakov’s account with a Siberia-size grain of salt. Yeltsin dismissed him last year; the book is filled with bitterness and self- aggrandizement. Korzhakov insists that his motive for publishing the memoir is to ““let the people know the true nature of their rulers.’’ Recently elected to the Russian Parliament, Korzhakov now is a little bit of a boss himself. Albeit one guaranteed to stay in the opposition as long as Yeltsin holds office.
