Moscow, December 25, 1991

Senate Building today with new Russian flag flying above Gorbachev’s former Kremlin office, now ceremonial residence of President Medvedev. Author

NOTES

Introduction

1 Palazchenko, My Years with Gorbachev and Sbevardreadze, 361.

2 Woolf, Nuclear Weapons in the Former Soviet Union.

3 Baker with DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, 583.

4 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 555.

5 Grachev, Final Days, 87.

Chapter 1: December 25: Before the Dawn

1 Weather details are from www.tutiempo.net.

2 The description of Red Square is from contemporary newspaper accounts.

3 I visited the Church of St. Louis before this date and spoke to Sofia Peonkova.

4 Neuffer, “In Moscow a Christmas Leap of Faith.”

5 Gaidar, Days of defeat and Victory, 111.

Chapter 2: December 25: Sunrise

1 Murray, A Democracy of Despots, 136.

2 Gorbachev’s dacha and the couple’s lifestyle are described in Gorbacheva, I Hope; Gorbachev, Memoirs; Chernyaev, My Six Years with Gorbachev; Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin ; and Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World.

3 Gorbacheva, I Hope, 174.

4 Shakhnazarov, Tsena Svobody, 493.

5 Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia, 3.

6 Details of Yeltsin’s home life are found in Aron, Boris Yeltsins; Colton, Yeltsins; Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin ; Solovyov and Klepikova, Boris Yeltsin ; Sukhanov, Tri Goda s Yeltsinym; Yeltsin, Against the Grain ; and Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia.

7 Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin, 170-171.

8 Solovyov and Klepikova, Boris Yeltsin, 91.

9 Yeltsin, The Struggle for Russia, 32.

10 Colton, Yeltsin, 296.

11 Zenkovich, Malchishki v Rozovykh Shtanishkakh, 388.

12 Sukhanov, Tri Goda s Yeltsinym, 233.

Chapter 3: Hiring the Bulldozer

1 Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World, 279.

2 Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin, 78-79.

3 Gorbachev, Memoirs, 235.

4 Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World, 66.

5 Gorbachev, Memoirs, 235.

Chapter 4: December 25: Morning

1 Interviews with Koppel, September 2009, and Kaplan, November 2009, cited here and elsewhere in the chapter.

2 ABC Television, unedited footage, December 25, 1991.

3 Gorbachev and Mlynář, Conversations with Gorbachev, 92.

4 Chernyaev, 1991, diary entry for December 15, 1991.

5 Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World, 225.

6 Chernyaev, 1991, diary entry for December 20, 1991.

Chapter 5: The Storming of Moscow

1 Shulgan, The Soviet Ambassador, 265-267.

2 Dobrynin, In Confidence, 621-622.

3 Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin, 72-73.

4 Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World, 68.

5 Colton, Yeltsin, 131.

6 Matlock, Autopsy on are Empire, 112.

Chapter 6: December 25: Midmorning

1 Solovyov and Klepikova, 276.

2 Interview with Yegor Gaidar, Moscow, October 2009.

3 Irish Times, December 27, 1991.

Chapter 7: A Bucketful of Filth

1 Colton, Yeltsin, 125.

2 Chernyaev, My Six Years with Gorbachev, 167.

3 Aron, Boris Yeltsin, 191.

4 Chernyaev, My Six Years with Gorbachev, 130.

5 Boldin, Ten Years That Shook the World, 234.

6 Ibid., 131.

7 Yeltsin’s sacking and treatment by Gorbachev is detailed in Colton, Yeltsin, 138-150; Yeltsin, Against the Grain, 144-155; Aron, Boris Yeltsin, 202-220; and Boldin, 235-236.

8 Colton, Yeltsin, 153.

9 Yeltsin, Agairest the Grain, 155.

10 Colton, Yeltsin, 150.

11 Aron, Yeltsin, 221.

12 Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin, 86.

Chapter 8: December 25: Late Morning

1 The account of the congress’s proceedings is from Rossiskaya Gazeta, December 26, 1991.

2 Alexander Kichikhin quoted in Sovetskaya Rossiya, December 26, 1991.

Chapter 9: Back from the Dead

1 Yeltsin, Against the Grain, 156-158.

2 Sukhanov, Tri Goda s Yeltsinym, 302.

3 Ibid., 302-304.