STEVE HURST, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The ceremony was almost regal, certainly befitting the historic occasion: Boris Nikolaiovic (ph) Yeltsin, swearing an oath in the Kremlin, the seat of the Soviet power. Russia's first democratically-elected president in its one-thousand-year history.</s>HURST: He was elected president of Russia, and it was a pretty good margin, and the significance of that was that it, first of all, gave Yeltsin a national office, some place where he really looked like a leader. He could show himself to the world.</s>BORIS YELTSIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Great Russia is rising from her knees. We will definitely turn her into a prospering, democratic, peace-loving, lawful, and sovereign nation.</s>HURST: The Russian flag was raised above the Kremlin, where Yeltsin has been accorded ceremonial office space. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who has yet to face direct election by the people, spoke to congratulate the man with whom he has spent most of the last four years in bitter dispute over the pace of Soviet reform.</s>MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, SOVIET PRESIDENT (through translator): I congratulate Boris Nicholaiovitch Yeltsin for his election.</s>HURST: Then a handshake for all the world to see, a seal of the new-found accord between the tow leaders.</s>HURST: As time passed, and the coup came against Gorbachev in August of 1991, Yeltsin was on hand, as president of Russia, to lead the opposition, and he really shined in that period of time.
CNN 20: Boris Yeltsin Elected, July 10, 1991