Russia ignores anniversary
MOSCOW ¡ª Public interest was low on Sunday as Russia marked the 10th anniversary of the 1991 coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev which eventually led to the collapse of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Fewer than 100 people returned to the former parliament building where Boris Yeltsin, then leader of Soviet Russia, stood atop a tank and roused resistance to the coup.

President Vladimir Putin, who is on holiday, has remained silent about the anniversary and what it means for post-Soviet Russia.

Nothing has been heard from Yeltsin, whose daring performance was central in defeating the eight-man State Emergency Situation Committee, which led to the political eclipse of Gorbachev.

On his return to Moscow after his release from house arrest in Crimea, Gorbachev, isolated and discredited, was powerless to stop Yeltsin banning the Communist Party.

Within four months, the Soviet Union was dead, Yeltsin had taken command in the Kremlin and Gorbachev was out of a job.

The failed coup of August 1991 took shape when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's top ministers concluded his reforms would destroy the Soviet Union. After detaining him at his summer home the night before, an eight-member "State Emergency Committee" announced 10 years ago on Sunday that they had taken control.

The popular resistance led by Yeltsin forced the coup plotters to give up days later, ultimately leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.

Polls show Russians divided and ambivalent about the coup, which in part explains the low turnout at the White House rally.

A public opinion survey showed that 28 per cent of respondents said they had supported Yeltsin, while 13 per cent had backed the coup. But 31 per cent said they had supported neither side, and 74 per cent of Russians said they regret the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Sergei Yevdokimov, the commander of the first tank regiment to cross onto Yeltsin's side, said on Sunday he had no regrets.

"I have never regretted what I did and will not repent of anything," Yevdokimov told Interfax news agency. "If I could go back 10 years, I would do just the same thing again."

The Soviet Union's demise ushered in radical economic reforms which saw a frightening collapse in living standards, soaring crime, two wars in Chechnya, widespread corruption and the rise of a number of powerful businessmen who grabbed control of the commanding heights of the economy for a pittance.

After eight years in power, Yeltsin left office with a tiny rating, democratic institutions weak and millions of Russians nostalgic for the economic stability of the Soviet era.

Nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky told a crowd of about 100 supporters on Saturday that it was reformers like Gorbachev and Yeltsin who had stripped Russia of its former glory.

"Even in 1945 our economy was stronger than it is in 2001: The rouble was stronger, there were fewer criminals, all the kids went to school," Zhirinovsky told a crowd waving flags saying: "Emergency Committee members were patriots!"

(21st Century)