Yakovlev had mediated an eight-hour-long meeting between Gorbachev and Yeltsin at which power was transferred from the last president of the USSR to the first president of Russia. Yakovlev recalled the resolute step of Boris Yeltsin as he walked down the long Kremlin corridor “as if on a parade ground” (“It was the walk of a victor”) and the weakness of Gorbachev. When Yakovlev walked into Gorbachev’s office, he found him lying down on a sofa.
