Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian: Борис Николаевич Ельцин​ (help·info); Russian pronunciation: ) (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.

Yeltsin came to power with a wave of high expectations. On 12 June 1991 he was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with 57% of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president. But Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s. The Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, economic collapse, and enormous political and social problems. By the time he left office, Yeltsin had an approval rating of two percent by some estimates.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Yeltsin, vowing to transform Russia's socialist command economy into a free market economy, endorsed price liberalization and privatization programs. Due to corruption and other factors, a good deal of the national wealth fell into the hands of a small group of people.