[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 9724]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BORIS YELTSIN

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, may I, before I begin my comments 
prepared for today, make two quick comments.
  No. 1, I note the passing of Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia and a 
major figure in the transition between the Communist rule and the 
present democracy that exists in Russia. Like many Members of the body, 
I had the opportunity to meet Boris Yeltsin. That is one of the 
privileges we have as Senators--we get to meet important people from 
around the world. I can't pretend to know him at all. I simply shook 
his hand and said hello. But I was in Russia not long after he took 
power, spent time in the U.S. Embassy there, and noted the impact he 
had on helping bring Russia into the modern world, the world of 
democracy, and out of the ancient world, the world of tyranny. He had 
his faults. He had his problems. But he played a pivotal role, and we 
should take a moment to recognize that fact.
  The one quote attributed to him that I enjoyed personally with 
respect to our life here has to do with the Library of Congress. When 
my constituents come to Washington, I tell them: You need to go see the 
Library of Congress, the Jefferson Building. Aside from the Capitol 
itself, it is the most beautiful building on Capitol Hill, and maybe in 
Washington. Boris Yeltsin is said to have gone into the Library of 
Congress and looked around at that magnificent lobby and then 
questioned: How did you get a building like this? You didn't have any 
czars.
  Having been to the buildings in the Kremlin and seeing the kinds of 
things the czars built, I understand that the Library of Congress 
probably would have impressed him.

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