RETIRED Russian president Boris Yeltsin will celebrate his 75th birthday today at a Kremlin function expected to include former US and German leaders Bill Clinton and Helmut Kohl. Yeltsin, who received messages of congratulations from Russian Patriarch Alexy II and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, spoke again before the occasion of his hopes as he steered Russia out of the Soviet era. "I wanted people to become free and happy," the ex-president said. Born in Siberia in 1931, Mr Yeltsin dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991 and founded modern Russia. But most Russians still view his presidency in a negative light,...