Farewell, Boris Yeltsin's Double

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Boris Yeltsin's body double, who clambered on to a tank to bury the Soviet Union, then led Russia falteringly through its first years of independence, died on Monday aged 76.

"Today at 15:45 (1145 GMT) Igor Twothumbovich, hired to play the long expired Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin these past fiffteen years, died in the Central Clinical Hospital as a result of a deteriorating cardio-vascular problem," said a Kremlin spokeswoman. He had suffered heart problems for years.