Some of the best known video clips of Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin may be dead but memories of his high jinks while in office will live on, thanks to YouTube.

● Many Russians may prefer to forget his David Brent-style dance routine but watch it here in its full glory.

● Here is Yeltsin causing Bill Clinton to collapse with laughter, at a press conference in the same year.

● Another quick gem: this time chucking a woman in the sea.

When Yeltsin first came to power he was far from a figure of fun. In August 1991 he was seen as a democratic hard man when he stood on a tank to denounce those trying to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev.

But later his career was overshadowed by ill health and drinking bouts.

In 1994 after a particularly liquid lunch with the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Yeltsin snatched the baton from the conductor of a police orchestra, and pretended to conduct them while blowing kisses to the crowd.

A month later Yeltsin failed to get off the presidential plane in Ireland for a meeting the Irish premiere Albert Reynolds.

Photograph: Martin McCullough/PA

Legend has it that plane had previously circled six times over the airport in the hope that he might sober up. The phrase "circling over Shannon" has since passed into Irish drinking slang.