Yeltsin worn out, needs rest - aide

PRESIDENT Yeltsin is worn out after his election victory and needs two months of peace and quiet to recover, a top Kremlin aide…

PRESIDENT Yeltsin is worn out after his election victory and needs two months of peace and quiet to recover, a top Kremlin aide was quoted as saying yesterday.

Replying to questions about the health of Mr Yeltsin who is convalescing outside Moscow, the aide, Mr Georgy Satarov, said in a newspaper interview that the president was suffering from "colossal weariness" after his energetic preelection campaign.

"Intellectually he is, of course, in very strong form. But physically... He needs, probably, about two months to recover from such overwork," Mr Satarov told the daily Sevodnya. "He needs peace and quiet."

Mr Yeltsin (65) has been in a sanatorium outside Moscow since mid July but a senior parliamentary official later said he understood Mr Yeltsin would be returning to work next Tuesday.

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"I called the President's secretariat and it is expected that on Tuesday he will return from his holiday," the State Duma [lower house] chairman, Mr Gennady Seleznyov, told a news conference.

Mr Yeltsin suffered two heart attacks last year. But he waged an energetic campaign up to the June 16th first round of the election dancing vigorously and swaying to music at public concerts to gain the youth vote.

But his exertions caught up with him and Mr Yeltsin slipped out of sight some days before the decisive July 3rd run off against the communist candidate, Mr Gennady Zyuganov. He has been seen only rarely since.