From 1991 to 1999, Boris Yeltsin was the first democratically elected President of Russia, leading the way for reforms, rekindling relationships with the West ...
Reuters via The Age
... and generally hitting the hooch harder than Ulysses S. Grant and Ernest Hemingway's reanimated corpses sewn together like some kind of pickled, two-headed Frankenstein's monster. Throughout his presidency, Yeltsin's tippling habit thrilled world leaders in such exotic locales as ...
In 1992, the nation of Kyrgyzstan - fresh from breaking away from the Soviet Union - invited Boris Yeltsin on over to patch things up with Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev, who would presumably receive state secrets on how to groom his own eyebrows.
Evgeni Levitin
Good Lord, it's like somebody shaved Oscar the Grouch.
However, Akayev forgot two major things: Boris Yeltsin was talented at playing the spoons as a musical instrument and equally talented at making liquor disappear. Yeltsin ended up using Akayev's shiny bald head as a percussive surface for his spoons routine, a trailblazing maneuver in the history of international relations that has yet to yield any treaties of note.
At a 1997 conference held in Sweden concerning nuclear weapons, Yeltsin kicked off the evening by guzzling champagne, ranting about how Swedish meatballs reminded him of tennis star Björn Borg's face, and then almost falling off the stage.
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"Your eyes, they are like two delicious pools of lingonberry sauce."
He followed this by announcing before the world that Germany and Japan had nuclear weapons, that he was now in Finland, and (to the surprise of everyone else in the Kremlin) that Russia was to cut its nuclear stockpile by one-third.
via NYBarfly
"And I will do so by trading any of you one warhead for two drink tickets."
And when he subsequently promised to spearhead a global ban on nukes, everyone at the conference went nuts, with aides rushing into damage control, claiming "he misspoke." This is proof that world peace will only be achieved if and when we decide to maroon the leaders of the world on an oarless rowboat on a manmade ocean of Cristal.
In 1994, a Russian delegation was sent to Berlin to see the last Russian troops out of Germany. Given that Russian troops had been stationed in Germany since World War II, this was a big deal. Of course, Yeltsin decided to tag along, get sloshed by lunchtime, and reenact the final scene of Animal House before the baffled gaze of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who probably found himself missing the Cold War.
Dima Tanin / Getty
"At least there was less hugging then."
Yeltsin proceeded to grab a baton and take over as conductor of a band like the drunken mob leader from the beginning of The Godfather: Part II. He then danced like a maniac with nervously grinning German dancers, blew kisses at the audience, and sang an unintelligible speech that - as you can see below - may or may not have been in Wookiee, a historically unacknowledged language of diplomacy.
When foreign dignitaries drop by Washington, they occasionally stay at the Blair House, the White House's official guest house. And one night in 1995, the Blair House's security staff was thwarted when a besotted Yeltsin slipped past his handlers and onto Pennsylvania Avenue - in his underwear.
Via Historical Figures That Used to be Hot
If you don't want to imagine old, liver-spotted Boris Yeltsin in a banana hammock, substitute in young, dreamboat Boris Yeltsin.
When the Secret Service finally noticed they were short one president, they discovered a slurring Yeltsin trying to hail a cab to go pick up a pizza. White House officials kept this incident under wraps for over a decade, as Yeltsin was one pepperoni pie (and one unintentional, excruciatingly unsexy episode of Taxicab Confessions) away from trashing 1990s Russian-American relations entirely.
Via Historical Figures That Used to be Hot
"Yes, sweaty steel worker Boris Yeltsin, you may cool down by rubbing marinara sauce all of your pecs. Da, that's the ticket."
When he's not researching famous politicians who hit rock bottom, Evan V. Symon can be found on Facebook.
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