Putin's Witnesses

On New Year's Eve 1999, Russian President Boris Yeltsin surprised the world by announcing that he was stepping down and turning the office over to the country's newly appointed Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. The transition called for Putin to serve as acting President until a special election was held three months later. He refrained from the normal campaign tactics of running television commercials or debating his opponents. Instead, his team hired filmmaker Vitaly Mansky to follow Putin in office for a television documentary.