The outgoing president, addressing a gathering including Yeltsin's widow and daughters and president-elect Dmitry Medvedev, said: "The turbulent nineties were a time of sweeping changes and brave, exceptional people, characters capable of going against the current, calling for new goals and bringing the masses behind them; Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was without any exaggeration one of these exceptional people."
The gathering at the Novodyevichye Cemetery in central Moscow was attended by top government officials and Patriarch Alexy II, who blessed the new monument to Yeltsin, an abstract stone sculpture painted with the colors of the Russian flag.
Putin, who was plucked from obscurity by Yeltsin to become Russia's leader eight years ago, said his mentor "passed through a difficult path both as a politician and a citizen, and often during his life found himself faced with complex, important choices, but his path was as unique as that of our country."
