Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights:#1 In the final days of 1999, just as he had each December for several years, Konstantin Ernst prepared to film the presidential New Year’s address. Yeltsin asked him to film it on New Year’s Eve at five in the morning.#2 On the last day of the twentieth century, Yeltsin announced his resignation from the presidency. His successor would be Vladimir Putin, a politician who most Russians were just getting to know.#3 The next order of business was to film a New Year’s address by Putin, which would air at midnight. Putin’s face looked young and taut on camera, while Yeltsin looked extremely unwell.#4 Ernst, the president of Channel One, was born in 1961, the scion of a notable family within the Soviet scientific establishment. He was bright and ambitious, and by the mid-1980s, he bristled at the restrictions imposed by the country’s decaying gerontocracy.