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Interview With Boris Nemtsov On August 1991 Putsch: ‘We Were Romantic…We Were Very Naive’

Radio Free Europe

Boris Nemtsov has played many roles in post-Soviet Russia. He was a reformist member of the Russian Republic’s Soviet-era parliament in 1991, served as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and as first deputy prime minister in the late 1990s. More recently, he has been one of the most visible faces of the opposition. RFE/RL correspondents Robert Coalson and Pavel Butorin spoke to Nemtsov on the 20th anniversary of the failed putsch in August 1991 that precipitated the fall of the USSR.

RFE/RL: It’s been 20 years since the anti-Gorbachev coup attempt and I’d like to start by asking you to take us back to that moment in your life. Where were you, and what were you doing, and what were your hopes and expectations at the that time?

Nemtsov: During those historic days I was in the White House [the Russian parliament building at the time]. I was a deputy of the Russian parliament and I was with [Russian President Boris] Yeltsin as a protector of the White House and freedom in Russia. Really, those were very interesting days and very dramatic days, I want to tell you.