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• 'A seriously ill patient'
• Yeltsin's health not their first concern
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MOSCOW (CNN) -- Two years after a life-saving heart operation, Russian President Boris Yeltsin still is beset with medical problems and currently is recuperating from his latest bout with illness. But you wouldn't have known that by watching the documentary about his bypass surgery shown by a pro-Yeltsin television station.

"Yeltsin's Heart," which aired on Russia's commercial NTV television on Thursday night, virtually ignored the president's present state of health as it re-enacted his quadruple bypass operation of November 5, 1996.

Doctors at first feared to operate on Yeltsin's heart, dreading the responsibility, the lead surgeon told interviewers.

"Everyone objected," Renat Akchurin told NTV, referring to his regular surgical team and recalling how his wife told him his own hand trembled when he was told in the summer of 1996 he would have to save the ailing Kremlin leader's life.

'A seriously ill patient'

"This was a fairly seriously ill patient and it was a colossal responsibility," Akchurin said. "But once the decision was taken everyone agreed and worked normally with me."

The film also revealed that tight security around the operation, for which Yeltsin broke decades of Kremlin precedent by announcing it in advance, had also nearly thwarted the minutely prepared procedure.

One of the key doctors on Akchurin's team recounted how police, unaware of his identity, had refused him entry to the clinic on the morning of the operation and only let him in after a hasty series of phone calls.

"They told me I couldn't come in because there was a special event on," the doctor told NTV. "I told them that without me there wouldn't be any event."

There was little else significantly new in the hour-long film made by the commercial channel, which unashamedly backed Yeltsin in his 1996 re-election battle against a Communist challenger, a campaign that tested the now 67-year-old leader's health to the limit -- and finally broke it.

With heavy media and financial backing, Yeltsin won. But he suffered an apparent mild heart attack days before the decisive second round of voting. Six weeks into his second term, doctors concluded only bypass surgery could save his presidency.

The tone of the film, however, reflected a change in mood from the days after the successful operation, which had been marked by a new openness on the part of the Kremlin that included a willingness to bring in international specialists.

Then there was some hope that an invigorated Yeltsin might return to tackle the problems of policy drift and corruption that had bogged down his attempts to build a democratic market economy on the wreckage of communism.

Yeltsin's health not their first concern

Two years after bypass surgery, Yeltsin spent the anniversary out of sight, recovering at the Black Sea resort of Sochi from what the Kremlin says is exhaustion and high blood pressure. Aides say Yeltsin continues to attend to government business as he rests.

In Moscow, the Zhuravlyev family watches the documentary broadcast about Yeltsin's bypass surgery.

Back in Moscow, the documentary's personalized view of the president's health didn't go over well with salesman Mikhail Zhuravlyev and his wife, Irina.

"There are a lot of people in our government, including the president. What I'm interested in is -- what they are doing to make our country better ... to make our lives better," Mikhail Zhuravlyev told CNN. "I'm not interested in their health. I'm not interested in their private lives."

His wife said she is more interested in how she's going to feed her two daughters than how Boris Yeltsin is doing. "It's sad when you realize this man is in charge of our country, and all of us," she said.

The Zhuravlyevs say Russia should have a vice president who could take over if the president is sick. Then, they say, the country wouldn't be so fixated on the health of just one man.

Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty and Reuters contributed to this report.