Decades Later, Many Russians Miss USSR

MOSCOW — Sergei Veretelny was shot and wounded when he stepped forward unarmed 20 years ago to help stop a column of armored vehicles in central Moscow, one of the few casualties of the last, failed attempt to preserve the Soviet Union.

Lyubov Komar's son Dmitry was one of three men killed during the anti-Gorbachev coup in 1991. It was a moment when Russians, largely cowed and passive subjects of Soviet rule for 74 years, massed in the streets to support the future president, Boris Yeltsin, demanding democratic change. The writer Vasily Aksyonov captured the enthusiasm of many at the time when he called the 60-hour standoff “probably the most glorious nights in the history of Russian civilization.”