Sergei Vladimirovich Yevdokimov

Сергей Владимирович Евдокимов

1955– ○ Retired 2000; civilian security work thereafter

The Tamanskaya Division battalion chief of staff who turned ten tanks to defend the White House during the August coup

I decided that whatever order I was given, I wouldn't shoot anyone.

A Soviet Army major serving as chief of staff of a tank battalion in the Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division. On 19 August 1991, he led ten tanks to the Kalinin Bridge near the White House under GKChP orders, but after meeting Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, he turned his tanks around to defend the Russian parliament. The tank from his battalion, No. 110, was the one Boris Yeltsin climbed to deliver his historic speech, an image that became the symbol of the coup's defeat. After the coup he was ostracized within the division, left the army in 2000, and spent the 1990s scraping by on security and funeral-agent jobs.