Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Novgorod. Participants in a rally in support of democracy on Victory Square after the failure of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP) to carry out a coup in the country. In order to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty, which was supposed to replace the USSR with a new federation of sovereign states, representatives of the highest Soviet leadership, headed by the Vice President of the USSR Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the President of the USSR from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Alexander Ovchinnikov/TASS