Interview with Dmitry Babich

Dmitry Babich, political analyst at the Russian Profile magazine, joined Russia Today to speak about the late Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first freely-elected President, on the day Orthodox Church marked the 40th day since his burial.

Russia Today: Boris Yeltsin was the first Russian President to be buried according to Orthodox tradition. What did that mean for the country and the church here?

Dmitry Babich: Well, under Yeltsin, Russia certainly became a lot more diverse than it had been before. And the rise of the popularity of the Russian Orthodox Church was also one of the features of this new society that formed itself under Yeltsin. So I think that it is a very symbolic gesture on the part of the current authorities that the first President of Russia was buried in Orthodox tradition and with great pomp, I would say.

RT: Yeltsin was widely regarded as a deeply controversial character, but how important would you say that he was for Russia? What kind of legacy did he leave?

D.B.: Well, I think that Yeltsin was very important for several reasons. Firstly, he was the first person who became the head of state in Russia not as a successor to the previous leader of the country, but on his own. He made himself popular and he got himself elected which was a huge achievement. Secondly, under him Russia really changed, I mean some people like these changes, some people do not but certainly this is another country much closer to the world standards now than it had been in the 1980s. Thirdly, I think, that his legacy stays on with us because the political system was not reformed much since Yeltsin left power.

RT: The great media attention that was attracted to his funerals, as you mentioned he was buried in a great pomp. Which, if any, of Yeltsin's political ideas, would you say, are still in effect in Russia today?

D.B.: Yeltsin was a populist first of all. He ruled the country as a macho, as a real macho man. He was sometimes careless but he was always resolute. And Russia continues to be run according to the same principles. I mean our authorities sometimes behave very emotionally responding to challenges from abroad. There is a lot of, you know, populism in the social politics sometimes. So, I mean the system that he created in the early 1990s continues to live in many ways. Despite introduction of some forms of tighter control over arms exports and, you know, there is more order in the country, the country got stabilised. But the political system of the 1990s continues in Russia, whatever our critics in the West say.

Earlier, Dmitry Babich joined Russia Today to give his view on the state of affairs between Russia and Estonia and to comment on the Estonian government