Yeltsin to me represents the beginning of my international political awareness. The USSR fell the year I graduated from high school, and the events leading up to that were what inspired me to devote a huge chunk of my higher education and later my work life to studying the countries and languages of the post-Communist world. When I studied in Moscow in 1994, it was still possible to see the battle scarring on the parliament building to which the military, still loyal to Yeltsin, had laid siege. It was a fascinating time, made no less fascinating by Yeltsin's later decline.
There is an oft-repeated story that I first remember reading in high school about Yeltsin convincing his elementary school classmates to jump out the window with him to escape a teacher he found tyrannical. In that case, the window was on the ground level, so no one was hurt. What he did with Russia strikes me as similar, however. No doubt the country would have changed without him, but Yeltsin did convince a huge number of Russians to jump with him. Unfortunately, the heights were higher and so were the stakes.
In the coming days, I'm sure I will scour the coverage obsessively, trying to get an idea of how history will view this man. His impact on what was once the Soviet Union will no doubt be debated for generations to come.
Go with God, Boris.