Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin is one of the greatest figures in the history of Russia, the man who liberated it from the communist yoke, who actually saved the country at the time of economic catastrophe, when hunger, cold, and civil war were on the threshold, who ensured that it survived with minimal losses survived the tectonic process of the collapse of the USSR, which directed Russia towards democracy and the market, towards European civilization. At the same time, in the opinion of many, this outstanding politician and statesman, at the end of his tenure as president, made a tragic, fatal mistake, putting forward his the successor of the man who sharply, 180 degrees, turned the Russian ship away from democracy, away from normal civilized life. How and why could Yeltsin make such a mistaken choice? This is what is discussed in this book (it is an abridged and revised version of the author’s previously published work “Why did he choose Yeltsin?”)