Final Days of the Soviet Union

The year 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Here’s a look back on the chaos that surrounded the USSR’s final months.

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April 10, 1991

Defying an appeal by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, about 10,000 miners rally in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, calling for nationwide support for their six-week-old strike. The slogans on the placards read: "We are starving, we are fed up with promises," and "Communist Party dictatorship to the waste heap of history."

/ AP

April 16, 1991

Miners from the Ukraine coal region demonstrate in Kiev, calling for the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. An estimated 300,000 miners went on strike, saying that despite an offer to double their salaries, the Kremlin failed to keep promises of improved living and working conditions.

Efrem Lookatsky / AP

May 6, 1991

Troops of the newly formed Armenian National Guard on patrol to protect border villages near Goris, southeast Armenia, as armed clashes continued between the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

M. Shakhbazian/Armenpress / AP

May 13, 1991

An Armenian family fleeing ethnic tension in the Armenian enclave of Nagorny-Karabakh in Azerbaijan arrives at Yerevan airport after being moved by Soviet army helicopter. Karabakh is an Armenian-populated enclave in Azerbaijan that declared independence from Baku in 1991, provoking a war that killed more than 30,000.

Wojtek Druszcz / AFP/Getty Images

June 11, 1991

Russian presidential candidate Boris Yeltsin stops before a meeting in Syktyvkar to shake hands with local supporters. Yeltsin won the first direct Russian presidential election on June 12, 1991.

/ AP

June 12, 1991

Russian leader Boris Yeltsin emerges from a balloting booth after casting his vote in the Russian republic's first democratic presidential election . He was the first directly elected president in Russia's 1,000-year history.

Liu Heung Shing / AP

July 10, 1991

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, right, congratulates Boris Yeltsin, the popularly elected first president of the Russian Republic, after Yeltsin's inauguration at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Liu Heung Shing / AP

July 10, 1991

Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin, front left, stands with Vice President of the Russian Federation Ruslan Khasbulatov during the playing of the Russian National Anthem at Yeltsin's inauguration ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Boris Yurchenko / AP

July 17, 1991

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George H.W. Bush laugh at a slight mix-up with simultaneous translations during their news conference in London. Gorbachev and Bush agreed to terms on the START Treaty at the close of the G-7 meeting.

Boris Yurchenko / AP

July 31, 1991

People lay flowers and light candles during a memorial service at the Lithuanian border post in Medininkai for seven Lithuanian border guards who were shot by Soviet security agents.

Alik Keplicz / AP

Aug. 1, 1991

Supporters of the Rukh Popular Movement for Ukraine's independence, awaiting the arrival of U.S. President George H.W. Bush, demonstrate outside the Supreme Soviet Building in Kiev. The U.S. president addressed the Ukrainian session during his visit.

Jefren Lukatzky / AP

Aug. 19, 1991

Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation, makes a speech from atop a tank in front of the Russian parliament building in Moscow after an attempted coup. Yeltsin called on the Russian people to resist the Communist hardliners.

/ AP

Aug. 20, 1991

A Soviet tank convoy holds its position near Moscow's central airfield less than two miles from the Kremlin. Communsit hardliners who ousted Mikhail Govachev sent the army's tanks rolling within a mile of the Russian Parliament building.

Boris Yurchenko / AP

Aug. 21, 1991

A trolley bus that was used by anti-coup demonstrators to block the exit of Soviet armored personnel carriers from the area near the Soviet Foreign Ministry office burns during a verbal confrontation between demonstrators and Soviet soldiers standing atop an armored vehicle in downtown Moscow. The coup collapsed and Gorbachev returned to Moscow.

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

Aug. 22, 1991

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev deplanes at Vnukovo Airport upon his return from Crimea after the coup attempt against him failed. Raisa Gorbachev and the Gorbachev's granddaughter Oksana are at the top of the stairs with other unidentified personnel.

/ TASS photo via AFP

Aug. 22, 1991

Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin waves the white-blue-and-red Russian tricolor flag from the Russian Federation building before a crowd of about 10,000 supporters celebrating the end of the three-day coup attempt by communist hard-liners in Moscow. Bodyguards hold bulletproof shields in front of Yeltsin.

Czarek Sokolowski / AP

Aug. 23, 1991

Russian President Boris Yeltsin, right, gestures toward Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev while he enjoins him to read a paper announcing his resignation as the General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee.

/ AFP/Getty Images

Aug. 30, 1991

Thousands of Azeri demonstrators gather in Baku to celebrate the proclamation of the country's independence.

Janek Skarzinsky / AFP/Getty Images

Aug. 30, 1991

A worker in front of a statue of Lenin prepares for the dismantling of the monument in Kiev. The Ukraine moved to create its own army and currency after signing an agreement with Russia for a temporary economic and military alliance.

Dusan Vranic / AP

Sept. 21, 1991

A Baku resident chops out with an axe a placard showing a portrait of Russain revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Azerbaijan was proclaimed a Soviet Socialist Republic by Soviet Union in 1920. Azeri National Council approved a declaration of independence in 1991.

Anatoly Sapronenko / AFP/Getty Images

Sept. 24, 1991

A wounded elderly Armenian woman is carried to a helicopter along with other refugees leaving the Shaumian district on the border between the Soviet republics of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan. The refugees were fleeing continued ethnic violence in the region; Boris Yeltsin was credited with arranging a cease-fire in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Pojoga / AP

Oct. 30. 1991

U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev shake hands at the start of the historic Mideast peace conference in Madrid.

Marcy Nigswander/AP

Dec. 21, 1991

Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin signs the final documents proclaiming a new Commonwealth of Independent States, at the House of Friendship in Alma Ata. Leaders of 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics signed the agreement that put an end to the Soviet Union.

/ AP

Dec. 25, 1991

Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, announces his resignation in a televised address from the Kremlin in Moscow on Christmas Day 1991.

Liu Heung Shing / AP

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