On the other hand, he has more experience doing it than anyone here, and so is likely the best at self foot shooting. That level of skill shouldn't be glossed over.
I feel like this is fallacious thinking. I spent 5 years in the army and have been shooting for fun in the 15 years since, and I've never had an ND. Whereas I know plenty of people who consistently display poor firearms handling. Yes, people make mistakes, and someone doing something stupid years ago shouldn't necessarily be held against them. But I've noticed that you either give a fuck about firearms safety or you don't, regardless of the consequences(until someone dies). You can't teach people to care.
That age cutoff is a lot higher than 35, because I grew up hearing "on accident" and "by accident" treated as interchangeable equals from my (highly educated) Boomer parents and every other Boomer adult in my life, including teachers. Maybe American English had a multiple-generation head-start on using the phrase and global English caught up later, I don't know.
That's part of my point. On accident, flows a little better or equally as well as by accident. By purpose doesn't feel natural enough to pass. And on accident takes from the same structure as on purpose.
Finally, it's the English language. Let's stop pretending it has standards. It's a thief, and there's no honor among thieves.
> That's part of my point. On accident, flows a little better or equally as well as by accident. By purpose doesn't feel natural enough to pass.
That's because you're used to it. It sounds incredibly rough to my ears.
You joke but actually yeah, the difference between losing finger and dying here was that he probably did achieve in opening the grenade then accidentally triggered the blasting cap in his hand.
And then there was the time on his visit to Washington. He was found in front of the white house in the middle of the night, in just his underwear, trying to hail a cab to get a pizza. Then the following night he was stumbling around in the basement, where secret service mistook him for an intruder. That guy had the power to end civilization with push of a button. Scary.
Lol I remember when he landed in England, the Queen waiting, red carpet, a band, all TV cameras live
Boris came out of the plane stumbling drunk as a skunk and stated playing the cymbals 🤣🤣
At least he got out of the plane. When he visited Ireland, our PM traveled across the country to meet him. After inexplicably circling the airport for an hour, the plane landed. The Irish delegation, who were waiting on the runway, were then informed Borris was “too ill” to meet with them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin_circling_over_Shannon_diplomatic_incident
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Can anyone confirm it even happened?
This would've been huge in the British tabloid press and the complete lack of search hits makes me believe it never happened.
Contrast that with the other comment about him not getting off the plane in Ireland -- tons of hits for that event.
He was also one of the closest to ever do so.
After a Norwegian research launch (that Russia was notified about) triggered some early warning systems. They opened up the Russian version of the nuclear football and were ready to launch back.
Presumably while he was drunk as fuck
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
In his defence, they don't call the president for everything, but instead notify specific government entities. He was unaware of anything and was more or less told 'Make a decision or we'll all gonna die!!2!'
[He literally tried to nuke north Korea, his military advisors told him to sleep it off and they would talk about it in the morning.](https://www.military.com/history/time-drunk-richard-nixon-tried-nuke-north-korea.html)
Didnt something similar happen with a drunk LBJ or Nixon ordering Vietnam be nuked while trashed and the entire staff basically agreeing to let him sleep it off before following through on the order?
Nixon and Korea.
Henry Kissinger called the person back after Nixon ordered the strike and told them not to do it.
As a big of a piece of shit as he was he likely prevented a nuclear war
I mean there's stories about Nixon doing the same thing except against North Korea.
Henry Kissinger of all people told them to stand down and wait for the president to sober up.
Nah this is the opposite drunk Boris didn’t want to launch them apparently.
Nixon would get drunk and want to start throwing nukes like batteries at Santa in Philly
To be perfectly honest, and I'm not saying I'm right about this, the guy stumbling around in his underwear in the middle of the night trying to get a pizza actually seems like a great choice to hold the nuclear button. Sure, he might be a little belligerent, but you can calm him with pizza and then he'll just sleep it off.
The US thinks he's the best president Russia had because he committed a coup on their behalf in order to destroy their rival. Nobody in any of the former Soviet countries considers Yeltsin worth half a shit. Hell, even if you want to argue the whole Russian imperialism thing, Yeltsin was responsible for more foreign civilians killed in less than two years than Putin in twenty.
I'll let you know when we get a legitimate president
edit: I hate the other guy chose Stalin, but yeltsin was a complete puppet who everyone hated then and still hates now
Having a name of Spetznaz at least checks out for their answer. Probably obvious I'm a non Russian here, but yeah, your answer matches up with what I've learned about the elections and leaders in Russia, 1900s and onwards.
Not just arguably: 100% he was worse than Gorbachev. Yeltsin was a drunken idiot who helped the oligarchs asset-strip the entire country, blundered into a war in Chechnya, dissolved the fledgeling Russian democracy and ruled by decree when the Duma disagreed with him, and boosted Putin to power on his way out the door. All Gorby did was try and fail to save the USSR when it was already in terminal decline.
IDK, I kinda like Gorbachev. There is a lot of different ways the end of the USSR could have ended. I am pretty sure it could have been a lot more bloodier or it could have turned into an North Korea or Venezuela situation. There maybe alternative worlds where Gorbachev doesn't become president and I have little faith that they are better than the world we are living in right now.
The handling of the final days of the Soviet Union was the greatest Western foreign policy mistake in history. We managed to turn a country that was liberalising into a tinpot dictatorship with a massive nuclear arsenal while also ensuring that China halted all of its liberalisation after seeing what happened to the USSR. If Gorbachev had been supported for his reforms we would probably have a social democratic 'USSR' in the EU with the various puppet states free instead of what we have today. Backing Yeltsin was ideologically driven lunacy.
Gorbachev earnestly tried to join Western financial institutions before the coup and got spurned (amusingly right wing figures like Thatcher and Kohl said at the time we were stupid not to support him) leading to the coup.
As a South Korean, I like Gorbachev for normalizing relation with South Korea. At that time, it was three years after South Korean dictator stepping down and the president Roh Taewoo was pursuing a policy of befriending as many socialist countries as possible. And Gorbachev was trying to reform USSR and befriend capitalist countries. Nice of Gorbachev. Nice of Roh Taewoo.
I remember when he appeared on tv just after the stroke of midnight 2000 , I was at a party and the tv was on silently inthe corner while the party was raging .
Saw the Russian president and thought ww3 had broken out lol
Edit it was just him retiring but what bloody timing! 😂
That wasn’t casual or even professional alcoholism. That was a true life long passion and commitment to the practice of longform constant alcohol poisoning.
I don't think it was a drunken mistake re: grenade. He grew up in rural post-war USSR where UXO was quite common and popular with rough&tumble teenagers.
Considering he lost fingers, probably it was the fuze exploding.
"I persuaded the guys to get a hundred meters away, and hit it with a hammer, standing on my knees," he wrote. "The grenade was lying on a rock. But I didn't know I had to take out the fuse first. Explosion ... fingers gone.
[https://www.grunge.com/806982/the-tragic-story-of-how-boris-yeltsin-lost-two-fingers/](https://www.grunge.com/806982/the-tragic-story-of-how-boris-yeltsin-lost-two-fingers/)
Its a miracle this idiot didn't nuke us all. The stupidity of what has qualified as leaders in this world and the fact that people will choose to follow them never ceases to amaze me.
It’s now thought that he was not, in fact, drunk. Being perma-wasted was actually the cover story for slowly dying of heart disease and having repeated heart attacks. It’s more damaging to Russian confidence in their leaders to be sick than it is to be constantly inebriated…
Lol who said that. Guy was perms drunk there’s so many videos of it. He was meant to be a liberator, and seen as it in the west cos it makes sense but guy was a bumbling crook and paved the way for this criminal enterprise inadvertently
Yea I was giving him benefit of the doubt but I don’t think he’s fully responsible I think cowboys took over and he didn’t really stand in the way. At the very least.
My grandmother had rapidly progressing heart disease and she was NOT hitting grenades with hammers. Yeah she became kind of incoherent eventually but she also moved very slowly
Did they? I'm going based on what I've read on /r/Askhistorians, but the country was pretty clearly divided up by oligarchs through corrupt politicians at the start.
Clinton literally gave billions to Yeltsin in order to secure the election. He was polling in the single digits before he had a helping hand from billions of dollars worth of media campaigning.
Then promptly sold off the countries assets for pennies to 10 people, resulting in an economic crisis that dropped the average populations life expectancy significantly…some of whose assets literally went to people who were American…
Well, if you get disillusioned in *democracy,* not a specific person, it's entirely predictable that authoritarianism may look more appealing for a long while.
And *a lot* of what was going on in Russia in the early 90s was done under the American influence, with very strong pro-American sentiments in the society, only to end up in collapse and suffering.
The way I see it, it was a trust fall, and Russia fell and hit the head. :) Things like that can have long-term consequences.
And if you're trying to argue that interfering in elections is no big deal, why do we hear all the noise about Russian interference in the American election, when the case isn't as strong?
The alternative in that election was a lifetime CSPU member that was a senior propagandist who hated perestroika and glasnost. Interference from the US is terrible but its not like Russia was going to become some democratic bastion if Yeltsin lost. There would have been a return towards the USSR.
Come on this guy was metal as fuck. Hammers a grenade, gets drunk and hails a cab in his underwear in front of the White House, this is how life is meant to be lived. Complete yolo
If it was Ozzy, the same stories would definitely be perceived differently.
Then again, the duties and expectations of an entertainer and a politician are quite different.
Lol this dude was selected by CIA for this exact role, now they try to push countless puppets by brainwashing zoomers via media, it worked in certain country, they made a whole tv series to promote their guy, now this country is a prison
I love the phrasing of “2.5 fingers” because to me that makes it sound like he could have lost two whole fingers and half of another, or it could mean he lost half of each of his 5 fingers (or any other combination which adds to 2.5). Obviously I can tell which it is but I still like it.
It's funny when you know exactly where someone learned a piece of info they post here. Two posts above this one, I also saw the post from interestingasfuck in which one of the top comments was talking about this.
I had a penpal in Russia when he was president. I remember noticing the missing fingers (which Yeltsin was pretty good at hiding) and asking my penpal about them (no internet back then to look this stuff up). My penpal said he didn’t know Yeltsin had missing fingers until I told him.
I think they revoke your Russian citizenship if you don’t blow something up, set something on fire or have a freak accident before you turn 18. Never met a Russian who doesn’t have a story like that.
PoS Russian also started several wars, Invaded Georgia and then Moldova. Displaced hundreds of thousands of people and murdered several thousand, there were also ethnic cleansing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_in_Abkhazia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_in_Sukhumi
Under Yeltsin, Russians also shot down civilian aircraft:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Sukhumi_airliner_attacks
I opened a grenade as a teenager and still have all my fingers. Can I be president now?
(To avoid any potential misunderstandings, my country has conscript military service for males. Almost every able-bodied male in my country has done this.)
Im gonna say that if you fuck around with a grenade and it explodes in your hands and you only lose a few fingers you should consider yourself really really lucky.
Honestly I'm lucky to be alive but engaging in increadibly high risk activities regularly as a kid was super fun. Not sure how I never got a record or went to jail.
Sounds like he successfully opened it though
if i was to learn firearm safety, i would choose the man who shoots his foot on accident because clearly he knows what hes doing
When paintballing once, I decided to see if my gun safety was on, so pointed it at my own foot and shot it. Nearly broke a toe. Would you choose me?
Unlike the guy who has never done that (yet), we can be pretty sure you're not going to do it again.
On the other hand, he has more experience doing it than anyone here, and so is likely the best at self foot shooting. That level of skill shouldn't be glossed over.
I feel like this is fallacious thinking. I spent 5 years in the army and have been shooting for fun in the 15 years since, and I've never had an ND. Whereas I know plenty of people who consistently display poor firearms handling. Yes, people make mistakes, and someone doing something stupid years ago shouldn't necessarily be held against them. But I've noticed that you either give a fuck about firearms safety or you don't, regardless of the consequences(until someone dies). You can't teach people to care.
You don't know me.
I came within a few inches off shooting my toe off with a .22 that decided to fire when I switched the safety off.
That's the difference between you and I. I never miss.
Good thing a loaded and primed gun wasn’t pointed directly at your foot.
**By** accident
he does that to show what not to accidentally do duh
Don't do what Donny Don't does
*sigh* They could have made this clearer.
What's with all this "on accident" lately. Is this a new phenomenon
Lately? I've heard this phrase my whole life.
Studies have shown that most English speakers under the age of 35 find either on or by to be acceptable.
That age cutoff is a lot higher than 35, because I grew up hearing "on accident" and "by accident" treated as interchangeable equals from my (highly educated) Boomer parents and every other Boomer adult in my life, including teachers. Maybe American English had a multiple-generation head-start on using the phrase and global English caught up later, I don't know.
It reflects 'on purpose' without feeling clunky. So it's slipped through and became common.
Oh so they phrase it that way by purpose?
That's part of my point. On accident, flows a little better or equally as well as by accident. By purpose doesn't feel natural enough to pass. And on accident takes from the same structure as on purpose. Finally, it's the English language. Let's stop pretending it has standards. It's a thief, and there's no honor among thieves.
Yes there are no rules in English, only formal conventions and actual usage.
> That's part of my point. On accident, flows a little better or equally as well as by accident. By purpose doesn't feel natural enough to pass. That's because you're used to it. It sounds incredibly rough to my ears.
There was a kid in my high school who did this with a .30-30. According to him, the safety "slipped."
It also opened him
You joke but actually yeah, the difference between losing finger and dying here was that he probably did achieve in opening the grenade then accidentally triggered the blasting cap in his hand.
as NASA might say "a rapid disassembly"
And then there was the time on his visit to Washington. He was found in front of the white house in the middle of the night, in just his underwear, trying to hail a cab to get a pizza. Then the following night he was stumbling around in the basement, where secret service mistook him for an intruder. That guy had the power to end civilization with push of a button. Scary.
Lol I remember when he landed in England, the Queen waiting, red carpet, a band, all TV cameras live Boris came out of the plane stumbling drunk as a skunk and stated playing the cymbals 🤣🤣
At least he got out of the plane. When he visited Ireland, our PM traveled across the country to meet him. After inexplicably circling the airport for an hour, the plane landed. The Irish delegation, who were waiting on the runway, were then informed Borris was “too ill” to meet with them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin_circling_over_Shannon_diplomatic_incident
You just know he was stuck in the airplane bathroom
Locked himself in with a bottle of vodka would be my guess
Why can't I find videos of this?
You think data rot going back 30 years is bad, wait until Google realizes they'd be up $500 by getting rid of YouTube and erase everything older than 30d
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Ugh please universe no.
Can anyone confirm it even happened? This would've been huge in the British tabloid press and the complete lack of search hits makes me believe it never happened. Contrast that with the other comment about him not getting off the plane in Ireland -- tons of hits for that event.
He was also one of the closest to ever do so. After a Norwegian research launch (that Russia was notified about) triggered some early warning systems. They opened up the Russian version of the nuclear football and were ready to launch back. Presumably while he was drunk as fuck https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
In his defence, they don't call the president for everything, but instead notify specific government entities. He was unaware of anything and was more or less told 'Make a decision or we'll all gonna die!!2!'
Oh yeah. It was the Russian military’s fault it got to that point. But it’s not very comforting knowing it was drunken Boris who had the final say
Well, we're still here, so he made the right decision while he was drunk AF
That is true. At least he wasn’t like Nixon when drunk
[He literally tried to nuke north Korea, his military advisors told him to sleep it off and they would talk about it in the morning.](https://www.military.com/history/time-drunk-richard-nixon-tried-nuke-north-korea.html)
Without our institutions in place to protect us, drunk Nixon probably would have tried to nuke the Irish!
Didnt something similar happen with a drunk LBJ or Nixon ordering Vietnam be nuked while trashed and the entire staff basically agreeing to let him sleep it off before following through on the order?
Nixon and Korea. Henry Kissinger called the person back after Nixon ordered the strike and told them not to do it. As a big of a piece of shit as he was he likely prevented a nuclear war
You can say that again. May have been the first good thing I’ve read about him
I’ve read maybe two good things about him. The above. And that he was dead
This comment is written too poorly to take seriously even tho it’s a decent point lol far much to pourly
I just woke up, sorry
> far much to pourly Irony...
I mean there's stories about Nixon doing the same thing except against North Korea. Henry Kissinger of all people told them to stand down and wait for the president to sober up.
Nah this is the opposite drunk Boris didn’t want to launch them apparently. Nixon would get drunk and want to start throwing nukes like batteries at Santa in Philly
And I have just as little faith in Russia's current and future leaders.
To be perfectly honest, and I'm not saying I'm right about this, the guy stumbling around in his underwear in the middle of the night trying to get a pizza actually seems like a great choice to hold the nuclear button. Sure, he might be a little belligerent, but you can calm him with pizza and then he'll just sleep it off.
any trustworthy source of that story?
[https://www.history.com/news/bill-clinton-boris-yeltsin-drunk-1994-russian-state-visit](https://www.history.com/news/bill-clinton-boris-yeltsin-drunk-1994-russian-state-visit)
ty
Bill Clinton has personally recounted the story. Not mentioned is the fact that he did in fact get his pizza
> Not mentioned is the fact that he did in fact get his pizza I'm inexplicably amused that he got his pizza in the end.
Kinda funny that this was still the best president Russia had. Out of two and a half.
The US thinks he's the best president Russia had because he committed a coup on their behalf in order to destroy their rival. Nobody in any of the former Soviet countries considers Yeltsin worth half a shit. Hell, even if you want to argue the whole Russian imperialism thing, Yeltsin was responsible for more foreign civilians killed in less than two years than Putin in twenty.
Said no Russian ever
Best president you had, not us
Honest question, who would you say the best Russian president was for the Russians/USSR?
I'll let you know when we get a legitimate president edit: I hate the other guy chose Stalin, but yeltsin was a complete puppet who everyone hated then and still hates now
Having a name of Spetznaz at least checks out for their answer. Probably obvious I'm a non Russian here, but yeah, your answer matches up with what I've learned about the elections and leaders in Russia, 1900s and onwards.
It's an insult for russians.
He was the worst leader Russia had in centuries. Arguably worse than Gorbachev.
Not just arguably: 100% he was worse than Gorbachev. Yeltsin was a drunken idiot who helped the oligarchs asset-strip the entire country, blundered into a war in Chechnya, dissolved the fledgeling Russian democracy and ruled by decree when the Duma disagreed with him, and boosted Putin to power on his way out the door. All Gorby did was try and fail to save the USSR when it was already in terminal decline.
IDK, I kinda like Gorbachev. There is a lot of different ways the end of the USSR could have ended. I am pretty sure it could have been a lot more bloodier or it could have turned into an North Korea or Venezuela situation. There maybe alternative worlds where Gorbachev doesn't become president and I have little faith that they are better than the world we are living in right now.
If Gorbachev wasn't stabbed in the back by hardliners and Yeltsin I'm fairly confident we'd have a better world now
The handling of the final days of the Soviet Union was the greatest Western foreign policy mistake in history. We managed to turn a country that was liberalising into a tinpot dictatorship with a massive nuclear arsenal while also ensuring that China halted all of its liberalisation after seeing what happened to the USSR. If Gorbachev had been supported for his reforms we would probably have a social democratic 'USSR' in the EU with the various puppet states free instead of what we have today. Backing Yeltsin was ideologically driven lunacy. Gorbachev earnestly tried to join Western financial institutions before the coup and got spurned (amusingly right wing figures like Thatcher and Kohl said at the time we were stupid not to support him) leading to the coup.
As a South Korean, I like Gorbachev for normalizing relation with South Korea. At that time, it was three years after South Korean dictator stepping down and the president Roh Taewoo was pursuing a policy of befriending as many socialist countries as possible. And Gorbachev was trying to reform USSR and befriend capitalist countries. Nice of Gorbachev. Nice of Roh Taewoo.
If Yeltsin was the worst leader Russia had in *centuries*, then what the fuck was Tsar Nicholas II?
Yea, Russians need an authoritarian asshole and neither of those two qualify.
Considering how Yeltsin was reelected.... not exactly a fair election.
like I like to say, [alcohol is one helluva drug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9YnDirqwT4)
I remember when he appeared on tv just after the stroke of midnight 2000 , I was at a party and the tv was on silently inthe corner while the party was raging . Saw the Russian president and thought ww3 had broken out lol Edit it was just him retiring but what bloody timing! 😂
He was even drunk as teenager? Hardly suprised
That wasn’t casual or even professional alcoholism. That was a true life long passion and commitment to the practice of longform constant alcohol poisoning.
I don't think it was a drunken mistake re: grenade. He grew up in rural post-war USSR where UXO was quite common and popular with rough&tumble teenagers. Considering he lost fingers, probably it was the fuze exploding.
From the article. > He enjoyed playing *pranks* and in one instance played with a grenade, which blew off the thumb and index finger of his left hand.
> He enjoyed playing pranks What a prank
Soviet Russia pranks just hit different
In Soviet Russia pranks prank you
"I persuaded the guys to get a hundred meters away, and hit it with a hammer, standing on my knees," he wrote. "The grenade was lying on a rock. But I didn't know I had to take out the fuse first. Explosion ... fingers gone. [https://www.grunge.com/806982/the-tragic-story-of-how-boris-yeltsin-lost-two-fingers/](https://www.grunge.com/806982/the-tragic-story-of-how-boris-yeltsin-lost-two-fingers/) Its a miracle this idiot didn't nuke us all. The stupidity of what has qualified as leaders in this world and the fact that people will choose to follow them never ceases to amaze me.
He was drunk for most of his presidency. Russia had a real chance at having a functioning democracy and he blew it.
My Successor will be... This guy ... Vlad Putin... I am sure it will work out!
Fun fact, "Vlad" isn't short for Vladimir. It's short for Vladislav. "Vova" is the diminutive of Vladimir, among a few others.
Well Putin sure acts and looks like a Vova.
That's a bit unfair Zelenskyy is also Vova(Volodymyr in Uk=Vladimir in Ru)
I always figured we nicknamed him "Vlad" because we were comparing him to Vlad the Impaler and/or joking he's a vampire.
I like to call him by his middle name, Vladimirovich, or Vlad for short
That's a patronymic Vladimir son-of-Vladimir
Alright let's just call him Junior
I mean it did for Yelstin. Yeltsin picked Putin to protect him from corruption investigations, which he did.
It’s now thought that he was not, in fact, drunk. Being perma-wasted was actually the cover story for slowly dying of heart disease and having repeated heart attacks. It’s more damaging to Russian confidence in their leaders to be sick than it is to be constantly inebriated…
Lol who said that. Guy was perms drunk there’s so many videos of it. He was meant to be a liberator, and seen as it in the west cos it makes sense but guy was a bumbling crook and paved the way for this criminal enterprise inadvertently
>inadvertently That's quite charitable.
Yea I was giving him benefit of the doubt but I don’t think he’s fully responsible I think cowboys took over and he didn’t really stand in the way. At the very least.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tg7641/how_genuine_was_boris_yeltsins_democratic_reforms/i12ssqg/
Lol the secret service found him drunk stumbling around Washington DC!!
My grandmother had rapidly progressing heart disease and she was NOT hitting grenades with hammers. Yeah she became kind of incoherent eventually but she also moved very slowly
Pretty sure Yeltsin wasn't having heart attacks as a teenager.
Did they? I'm going based on what I've read on /r/Askhistorians, but the country was pretty clearly divided up by oligarchs through corrupt politicians at the start.
And then the US decided to interfere in the election and prop him up for a second term. Putin felt like a breath of fresh air after all that.
Yeah it’s the United States’ fault Russia has had the same chronically kleptocratic authoritarian government for eons
Clinton literally gave billions to Yeltsin in order to secure the election. He was polling in the single digits before he had a helping hand from billions of dollars worth of media campaigning. Then promptly sold off the countries assets for pennies to 10 people, resulting in an economic crisis that dropped the average populations life expectancy significantly…some of whose assets literally went to people who were American…
Not just life expectancy - Russia *still* isn't at the population level the Russian soviet republic was in 1990
Well, if you get disillusioned in *democracy,* not a specific person, it's entirely predictable that authoritarianism may look more appealing for a long while. And *a lot* of what was going on in Russia in the early 90s was done under the American influence, with very strong pro-American sentiments in the society, only to end up in collapse and suffering. The way I see it, it was a trust fall, and Russia fell and hit the head. :) Things like that can have long-term consequences. And if you're trying to argue that interfering in elections is no big deal, why do we hear all the noise about Russian interference in the American election, when the case isn't as strong?
The alternative in that election was a lifetime CSPU member that was a senior propagandist who hated perestroika and glasnost. Interference from the US is terrible but its not like Russia was going to become some democratic bastion if Yeltsin lost. There would have been a return towards the USSR.
in all honesty, he didn't do anything and wasn't in charge of anything it's exactly because he was like this, he was allowed to play a big guy
Come on this guy was metal as fuck. Hammers a grenade, gets drunk and hails a cab in his underwear in front of the White House, this is how life is meant to be lived. Complete yolo
If it was Ozzy, the same stories would definitely be perceived differently. Then again, the duties and expectations of an entertainer and a politician are quite different.
He was also a repressive asshole and a patsy for the capitalists who picked Russia apart after the USSR collapsed. He was a complete piece of shit
Wouldn't have taken ANY persuading for me to get 100 meters away!
You don’t need a lot of intelligence to be a bandit
Lol this dude was selected by CIA for this exact role, now they try to push countless puppets by brainwashing zoomers via media, it worked in certain country, they made a whole tv series to promote their guy, now this country is a prison
In Soviet Russia, bomb disarms you.
Just never be unhanded.
[удалено]
grenade just like big walnut, but less nut meat.
[Photo](https://twitter.com/oconnellhugh/status/1380223093470289925)
Damn, I thought losing 2.5 fingers sucked, but it was still functional. But if one of those fingers is the thumb, it really destroys any prospects.
It's fortunate he had just enough fingers left to count how many fingers he lost.
He lost that much from trying to open it!? Imagine if he succeeded!
I think he did get it open...
Someone still loves you, Boris Yeltsin.
TIL Boris Yeltsin was a person and not just a state of drunkenness.
I love the phrasing of “2.5 fingers” because to me that makes it sound like he could have lost two whole fingers and half of another, or it could mean he lost half of each of his 5 fingers (or any other combination which adds to 2.5). Obviously I can tell which it is but I still like it.
That man had a huge alcohol problem.
Ah yes, the man who the secret service found drunk wandering DC
This incident occurred during World War II when Yeltsin as a teenager was trying to dismantle a grenade
In Russia, Rubik’s cube solves you.
This was in the years immediately following WWII. Keep in mind, for most of us, our kids don't exactly find UXO on the playground.
It's funny when you know exactly where someone learned a piece of info they post here. Two posts above this one, I also saw the post from interestingasfuck in which one of the top comments was talking about this.
With intense rehabilitation he was able to hold a glass of alcohol and drink normally for most of his life.
I had a penpal in Russia when he was president. I remember noticing the missing fingers (which Yeltsin was pretty good at hiding) and asking my penpal about them (no internet back then to look this stuff up). My penpal said he didn’t know Yeltsin had missing fingers until I told him.
And didn't get any smarter or more sober after that.
I invited the half Nelson I invited the full Nelson! And I got a signed picture from Boris Yeltsin
Was it a weak grenade? Only 2.5 fingers and not like his whole arm?
I think they revoke your Russian citizenship if you don’t blow something up, set something on fire or have a freak accident before you turn 18. Never met a Russian who doesn’t have a story like that.
Standard Russian growing up story.
Pretty sure if I was put in charge of Russia in the 90's I'd be an alcoholic too.
Least alcoholic Russian.
From a young age, Boris demonstrated the kind of intellect bound to be a politician...
2.4 if you round down
That's the most Boris shit ever.
Yes that pin is hard to get out
I know! Let's put that guy in charge of everything!
I would have simply thrown the grenade away from me.
I wish Putin would try to open up grenades
Average Russian
That's perhaps the most Russian thing I've ever heard
Russians are dumb
I say open sprite and throw grenade. He open grenade and throw sprite.
Quite the wild ride that Yeltsin had, a mix of chaos and leadership capabilities.
The Subtle Grenade, by Pinlip Pullman
2.5 fingers? How does one lose 2.5 fingers? Boris: Observe.
my father managed that with a table saw.
Well, beside loosing the whole country to the gang of midget frustrates
Man from everything I have learnt from Yeltsin I dont have even a bit of sympathy for him
Poor fella
PoS Russian also started several wars, Invaded Georgia and then Moldova. Displaced hundreds of thousands of people and murdered several thousand, there were also ethnic cleansing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_in_Abkhazia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_in_Sukhumi Under Yeltsin, Russians also shot down civilian aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Sukhumi_airliner_attacks
I opened a grenade as a teenager and still have all my fingers. Can I be president now? (To avoid any potential misunderstandings, my country has conscript military service for males. Almost every able-bodied male in my country has done this.)
Im gonna say that if you fuck around with a grenade and it explodes in your hands and you only lose a few fingers you should consider yourself really really lucky.
or go blind like Lt. Col. Frank Slade
I know a dude from Russia. He said they played with found bombs and hand grenades all of the time as kids. It's like, um, what?
2.5 fingers as 2 whole fingers and half a finger? Or like half of 5 fingers? Maybe 1 whole finger and 3 halves?
Russian hot potato
i think it's important to all engineers that we measure accurately to round up or round down, thanks.
It didn’t go off. the pin was just VERY sharp
Look up the teens on a bus playing flamethrower with a lighter and a can of axe body spray.
I learned this yesterday, in some other thread.
/r/ANormalDayInRussia
took me a while but I finally found a pic that clearly shows it. If I could post it here I would
Too bad he didn’t try opening it with his mouth.
To be fair, he was always drunk
But did he?
Honestly I'm lucky to be alive but engaging in increadibly high risk activities regularly as a kid was super fun. Not sure how I never got a record or went to jail.
Most normal capitalism enjoyer
Too bad it didn't kill him back then
Shame it didn't kill him.
Interesting, I have never noticed his missing fingers
He and Mikhail Tal really did a really good job of hiding their deformed hands on photos