Yeltsin has future plans: Daughter

Yeltsin has future plans: Daughter
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Boris Yeltsin has some free time. But his daughter says the former Russian President has ambitious plans for filling it up, including creating a foundation in his name and travelling the world. ``Papa now plans to set up his foundation,'' Tatyana Dyachenko said in an interview on Wednesday on the front page of the business daily, Kommersant.

``It will have a library and archives. I will help him,'' she said, adding that two other former top Yeltsin aides would also be involved in the project. Dyachenko, who was relieved of her Kremlin post on Monday by acting President Vladimir Putin, said she was kept in the dark about her father's shock resignation plan until the very last. ``It became clear about a month ago that he was planning something. I think papa made his final decision following his visit to China'' last year, she said.

She said her 68-year-old father, scheduled to depart on Wednesday for Israel to join in celebrations of the Orthodox Christmas, was doing ``very well'' after resigning and hadone of his best New Year's holidays in years. ``I haven't seen him like this in a long time,'' she said. ``We had such a good New Year's celebration, better than we've had in a long time.''

Her father, she said, had long ago expressed a desire to travel the world and that is one of the things he now plans to do.

Yeltsin, whom the Kremlin advises journalists to refer to as ``the first President'' and not ``the former President'', plans to remain active in Russian politics and will probably retain a Kremlin office, another newspaper said.