The first inauguration of Vladimir Putin as the president of Russia took place on Sunday, 7 May 2000. The ceremony was held for the first time in the Grand Kremlin Palace and lasted exactly one hour.
Vladimir Putin takes the oath of office as the president of Russia
Soldiers carrying Presidential symbols
Boris Yeltsin gives congratulatory speech
Lyudmila Putina, Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin after the inauguration
Boris Yeltsin
Videos
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990. He lat
First inauguration of Vladimir Putin
…place on Sunday, 7 May 2000. The ceremony was held for the first time in the Grand Kremlin Palace and lasted exactly one hour. Despite the fact that Boris Yeltsin at the time of the ceremony was already a former president (having resigned 31 December 1999), he was formally invited as a guest, but took part in the…
Official portrait, 1992
Yeltsin (second from left) with his childhood friends in the 1940s
In 1976, Yeltsin was interviewed by Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party, who decided that he was an appropriate choice to become First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk obkom.
Mikhail Gorbachev took office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985; he soon promoted Yeltsin to a job in Moscow.