Page 6 - PROOF!v1

Nikita Khrushchev: Already Alone
Moscow 1964
Only 32 years separate these photographs, yet they are worlds apart. Above, at the height of the Cold War, members of the Soviet Politburo await the arrival of Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella at a Moscow airport. Less than 24 hours before this picture was taken, Nikita Khrushchev’s colleagues – including Brezhnev – conspired to overthrow the Soviet leader. The very next day, Khrushchev was officially stripped of power and sent to the country cabin where he died seven years later. “He’s alone already,” says Bergoltsev of the photo. “Nobody pays attention at him.” Below, Boris Yeltsin, the first democratically elected president of the Russian Federation, midway through his term. Yeltsin was greeting veterans of World War II in Gorky Park on May 9, a holiday commemorating victory over the Nazis. “I wasn’t planning to make any pictures that day,” says Bergoltsev. “I was packing to leave my Motherland, this time for good, when something made me grab my camera and go to the park. I was rewarded with the first Russian president communicating with veterans of history’s most horrific war. It was my last shoot in Russia.”
Boris Yeltsin
Moscow 1996