Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Leningrad. Supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin at the building of the Leningrad Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after S. M. Kirov on Theatre Square during events in support of democracy after the declaration of a state of emergency 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 USSR Vice President Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the USSR president from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Yuri Belinsky/TASS