It was 1989, Yeltsin was not a president of Russia. At the time he was a regional Communist Party leader just elected to the (kind of a) parliament of Russian Soviet Federative Socialistic Republic - RSFSR, then still a member of USSR. He would be elected a President of RSFSR in 1990, and in 1991, after dissolution of USSR, Russia became an independent country. Unless one was a diplomat or KGB or shown a special interest in learning the way of life in "the West", there was not too much exposure even for people at his level.