The exhibition “Boris Yeltsin and his era”

The 1990s, a time of great shocks and changes in Russia, is represented in photographs in the exhibition "Boris Yeltsin and his era," dedicated to his 80th birthday. It was opened at the Multimedia Art Museum in the center of Moscow on Wednesday.

The first visitors of the exhibition were Yeltsin's wife, Naina, and daughter Tatyana Dyachenko.

Despite the fact that the decade is still fresh in many people’s minds, the organizers say now is the time to rethink the 1990s.

The exhibition has its own hall at the museum: along the perimeter there are portraits of Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president. The photos show key moments in his rule, and in the domestic and foreign policy of the country. Photo: The former head and deputy head of the presidential administration, Valentin Yumashev (right) and Sergei Yastrzhembsky.

The exhibition begins with a shot from 1990, when Boris Yeltsin was chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and ends with a 2004 picture of the tennis-loving former president at the Kremlin Cup tournament.

The photos in the center of the hall depict all the main themes of the 1990s - the photographs of block-long line to the first McDonald's, completely empty shop shelves, rallies in support of or protesting against Yeltsin, the turmoil in the ex-Soviet republics and the beginning of a new wealthy life - fashion shows and the first private houses.

The exhibition presents 400 of the most significant photographs from Boris Yeltsin’s era. Photo: Yeltsin’s widow, Naina, and Olga Sviblova, director of the Multimedia Art Museum.

Visitors to the Moscow House of Photography attend the opening of the exhibition “Boris Yeltsin and his era.”