Boris Yeltsin, who clambered on to a tank to bury the Soviet Union then led Russia falteringly through its first years of independence, died yesterday, aged 76.
World leaders showered Yeltsin with tributes for bringing freedom and democracy to Russia after decades of totalitarian rule, and pushing through market reforms that, though brutal, have helped turn Russia into a vibrant economy.
But he was resented by millions of Russians who lost their savings to his economic "shock therapy," lost sons in his war against Chechen rebels and watched him - at times apparently drunk - blunder through international summits.
"Today, at 15.45 (1145 GMT) Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin died in the Central Clinical Hospital as a result of a deteriorating cardio-vascular problem," said a Kremlin spokesman. He had suffered heart problems for years.
Anatoly Chubais, who as a young economist was the driving force behind Yeltsin's market reforms, compared the former president - the first leader of an independent Russia - to Tsar Peter the Great, credited with making Russia a European power in the early 18th century.
"He brought us from captivity into freedom," said Mr Chubais. "He took us from a country of lies... to a country which tried to live in truth."
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president whom Boris Yeltsin effectively ousted, offered a qualified tribute.
"I express the very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased, on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country, and serious mistakes," Mr Gorbachev said.
President Vladimir Putin, whom Mr Yeltsin anointed as his heir before stepping down, ailing and out of touch, in the last hours of 1999, expressed his "deepest condolences."
The chaos he inherited from Mr Yeltsin created a widespread disillusionment with democracy that later allowed Mr Putin, backed by most Russians, to roll back many of Mr Yeltsin's reforms. But Boris Yeltsin, living quietly in retirement at his villa near Moscow, never spoke out against Vladimir Putin.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, called Boris Yeltsin a "brave fighter for democracy."
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, in Moscow for talks with Mr Putin, said: "No Americans at least will forget seeing him standing on the tank outside of the White House (in Moscow) resisting a coup attempt."
Boris Yeltsin ruled Russia from 1991 to the last day of 1999, when he handed over power to Vladimir Putin. He had the distinction of becoming the first Kremlin leader to step down voluntarily.
Born into a poor peasant family in the Ural mountains, Yeltsin lived in one room of a wooden hut. He rose through the Communist ranks and was handpicked by Gorbachev to be party boss in Moscow.
Once there, the charismatic and bear-like Yeltsin emerged as a leader of a growing rebellion against Communist rule. He was elected president of Russia - still inside the Soviet Union - in a landslide.
In August 1991, a clique of hardliners staged an abortive coup to halt Mr Gorbachev's perestroika reforms. Boris Yeltsin, in perhaps his finest moment, climbed on to a tank outside government headquarters to rally the crowd against the plotters.
Four months later, he sat down at a Soviet hunting lodge in a forest in Belarus to sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union. He and his fellow signatories rang then US President George Bush with the news, and only then told Mr Gorbachev.
A triumphant Boris Yeltsin became president of independent Russia and launched a ruthless but ultimately effective campaign to dismantle Communism.
He became known for gaffes, some of which seemed to be fuelled by vodka. In 1994, during a stopover in Ireland, he failed to emerge from his jet to meet the Irish prime minister. Aides said he was tired, not drunk.