The Election That Ended Russian Democracy - June 12, 1991

On June 12, 1991, I stepped off a Delta flight in Moscow, walked out of the National Hotel on Mokhovaya Street, and found myself in the middle of Russia's first free election. A stranger handed me a Yeltsin campaign poster. I still have it framed in my home office. That day, the most democratic moment in Russian history is also where Vladimir Putin's Russia begins.