People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin Борис Николаевич Ельцин The man who climbed onto the tank
- Arnold Vasilyevich Voylukov Арнольд Васильевич Войлуков The Soviet banker who testified about reform's hidden origins
- Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov Гавриил Харитонович Попов Moscow's first elected mayor, who told the U.S. ambassador of the coming coup
- Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak Анатолий Александрович Собчак Constitutional Assembly chairman and first elected mayor of Saint Petersburg
- Ruslan Imranovich Khasbulatov Руслан Имранович Хасбулатов The Supreme Soviet chairman who stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
- Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis Геннадий Эдуардович Бурбулис The philosopher who proposed the one sentence that declared the Soviet Union dead at Belovezh
- Yegor Timurovich Gaidar Егор Тимурович Гайдар Architect of shock therapy, the economist who dismantled the planned economy and laid the first stones of Russian capitalism
- Sergey Vladimirovich Surovikin Сергей Владимирович Суровикин A Russian general shaped by obedience and uncompromising war