Skip to content

Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin is the President of Russia in the campaign's alternate 1993, the man who holds Dick "The Biz" Baxter in Moscow and questions him about everything the Paranatural Incident Task Force has seen. He is a fictional version of the real politician, written as a character in the show's alternate history; nothing here describes the real person.
Type NPC (fictionalized historical figure)
Aliases Yeltsin; President Yeltsin; the president
Affiliation Russian government
Status Alive; recovering from a concussion and wounds (as of Radford Horrors 04)
First appearance Roulet Estate 03
Played by Andre

Description

Yeltsin is polite, calm and dry, and he speaks English with the Biz. He cuts and lights a Cuban cigar for his prisoner with a small silver lighter, pats the seat beside him at the opera, and orders him scrambled eggs and ketchup after the ambush. He wears a big black coat when travelling, rides in an armored limousine and drinks strong black tea from a huge thermos. (Roulet Estate 03, Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

He makes small talk about Moscow hotels (the remodeled Baltschug Kempinski has better creature comforts than the Hotel Metropol, but "you cannot beat an in-house opera") and is a Star Wars fan. He calls the Biz "Baxter" or "Mr. Baxter", and once "Richard". (Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

He conducts the important conversations himself, and he explains why:

Quote

"I have faith in my military officers, but I do not have faith that my military officers are my military officers." (Andre as Yeltsin, Radford Horrors 01)

History

The Roulet Estate

After the siege at the Brooks Pharmacy the Biz vanishes from an American hospital. Ezra chose abduction by the Russians as the consequence of his character's earlier dealings, and Andre agreed. The Biz is held at the abandoned Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp, beaten and questioned, then left in silence for two weeks until a senior officer orders him put on a plane. In Moscow he is shackled to a chair in the former Soviet Parliament building for an hour before Yeltsin walks in. (Roulet Estate 03)

Quote

"Tell me everything you know about the humanists." (Andre as Yeltsin, Roulet Estate 03)

The Radford Horrors

By early April 1993 the Biz has been moved to the Hotel Metropol and has spoken with Yeltsin several times. His first captors, who kicked him and asked about Bill Clinton, are gone; the new ones ask only about aliens and already know many specifics. Yeltsin has also asked a little about Ross Perot. (Radford Horrors 01)

Yeltsin summons the Biz to his box in the Metropol's opera house and, during a comic opera, works through his questions. (Radford Horrors 01)

  • Marblehead. Soviet detectors recorded a surge in the cosmic microwave background the previous year and triangulated it to the Marblehead nuclear incident. He knows about the engineered worms and has intelligence about a second organism; the Biz confirms the sea creature.
  • Ballard. He asks about the "people who were not people" at the Utah ranch. The Biz explains the skinwalkers, and Yeltsin compares them to Koschei the Deathless. He fears that his own officers have been replaced, and says Russia is "developing a test".
  • The weapon. From a silk handkerchief he unwraps a broken, half-melted device identical to the team's flashlight weapon, taken from a man in very dark welding-style glasses. Several teams of Russian scientists could not identify it. The Biz tells him what it is.
  • Andrew Howard. "Tell me about Andrew Howard." The Biz praises his former boss, leaves out his abilities, and says he never heard him mention family.
  • The Biz himself. "Mr. Baxter, are you a communist?" The Biz says he is not really ideological.

Quote

"Nuclear reactors do not emit cosmic microwave background." (Andre as Yeltsin, Radford Horrors 01)

Quote

"We are no longer communist here either." (Andre as Yeltsin, Radford Horrors 01)

Throughout, the Biz plays up how seriously the United States takes the threat. His Manipulate Someone roll is an 11, and Andre rules that the Russians are "a hundred percent buying exactly what you are selling". (Radford Horrors 01)

About three months into the Biz's stay, at around three in the morning, the president meets him in the Metropol lobby and asks him to come and look at "an unusual aircraft crash in Oryol Oblast". On the road the convoy is ambushed: a car rams the limousine and explodes, and gunmen speaking Chechen and Russian open fire. The Biz finds the president unconscious under a guard who is shielding him, drags him to the rear car, and drives out through a wheat field under fire, with Ezra burning Luck more than once on the way. The guard dies in the back seat. The Biz treats the president's concussion from the medical cooler in the trunk, hides him in the wheat, fights a gunman who follows the car's trail, and flags down a Russian helicopter. (Radford Horrors 03)

Quote

"Richard, there has been an unusual aircraft crash in Oryol Oblast. I need you to come take a look at it with me and tell me what you see." (Andre as Yeltsin, Radford Horrors 03)

Yeltsin, sutured at the head and torso, receives the Biz at dawn on a cleared hospital floor, tells him "you may have saved my life", compliments the "fairly impressive stunt driving", and says his intelligence services think the attack was "opportunistic" and "fairly half-assed". He then continues the journey in his hospital bed, by helicopter and jeep, with the Biz helping to push the bed through an airlock into the tent over the crashed craft at the Oryol crash site. (Radford Horrors 04)

There he has doctors wake the crash survivor and questions it in Russian and then English. It answers "Survey"; that its people are "Not aliens. The opposite of aliens"; and "Servitors... need resources." The doctors warn against pushing further and Yeltsin stops. In private he asks the Biz what he makes of it, and points out that the being accepts O-negative blood: why would that work on an alien? (Radford Horrors 04)

Relationships

  • The Biz. Prisoner, then informant, then the man who saved his life. The Biz, for his part, is afraid of being sent back to "the frozen shit bucket and the kicking" if he is caught lying or seems less valuable. (Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 04)
  • His own military. He trusts his officers but not that they are still his officers, which is why he meets the Biz in person and keeps only trusted guards near the survivor. (Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 04)
  • The colonel. An unnamed colonel travels with him and fetches the Biz for him. (Radford Horrors 03)

Unresolved

Trivia

  • Yeltsin is never named during the ambush session, where Andre says only "the president". In the next session Zack asks which Russian president this is, and Andre answers "Yeltsin". (Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)
  • Yeltsin's "Richard" is the only time he uses the Biz's first name. In the following session Andre begins a guard's line with "Richard" and corrects it to "Mr. Baxter". (Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)
  • Zack admitted at the table that he would not be calling Andre on any details: "I don't know shit about Yeltsin." (Radford Horrors 04)

Appearances