- Title: RUSSIA: PRESIDENT YELTSIN AND FORMER PRESIDENT GORBACHEV CAMPAIGN FOR ELECTION
- Date: 9th May 1996
- Summary: VOLGOGRAD, RUSSIA (MAY 9, 1996) (AGENCY POOL - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV PLANE TAXIS ACROSS TARMAC 0.04 2. LV RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN STEPS OFF PLANE WITH WIFE NAINA, WALKS DOWN STEPS, GREETED BY OFFICIALS AND GIRLS IN NATIONAL COSTUME 0.20 3. MV YELTSIN TALKING ABOUT ELECTION CAMPAIGN (RUSSIAN) 0.52 4. SLV CAR DRIV
- Embargoed: 24th May 1996 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: VOLGOGRAD, RUSSIA
- City:
- Country: Russia
- Reuters ID: LVA63QSUTTJB9WR7WFBQX90Z6TUX
- Story Text: - INTRO: Russian President Boris Yeltsin and former President Mikhail Gorbachev campaign in Volgograd and attend Victory Day celebrations.
----------------------------------------------------- Russian presidential election rivals Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev were campaigning in Volgograd on Thursday (May 9) after attending Victory day celebrations.
Yeltsin arrived in the former city of Stalingrad to attend commemorations of the 51st anniversary of allied victory in World War Two.
Yeltsin greeted supporters as he walked through the Alley of Heroes in central Volgograd, shaking hands and making jokes with well-wishers.
The southern city is now known as Volgograd but is still called Stalingrad by many communist supporters nostalgic for the communist glory.
The Battle of Stalingrad of July 1942- February 1943 was a turning point in World War Two.
Former President Mikhail Gorbachev recieved a mixed reception as he campaigned in the city.
The former communist leader attending the victory celebrations with his wife Raisa and now a liberal presidential candidate, was jeered by hardline leftists on the site of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Viktor Anpilov, leader of the Stalinist party Working Russia, confronted the man he blames for the collapse of the Soviet Union as dozens of his supporters shouted insults, waved red flags and held up banners denouncing Gorbachev as a traitor.
Gorbachev, whose standing in opinion polls for the June 16 presidential election is only one or two percent, may have counted on extra media coverage by arriving in Volgograd just before Yeltsin, who flew in after attending Victory day parades in Moscow.
Not all of Volgograd, politically a communist stronghold, was hostile to Gorbachev. He and Raisa, always the most glamorous of Kremlin wives, were mobbed like film stars.
Families enjoying the holiday sunshine took photographs and asked for autographs.
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