One of the more notable pictures of the ‘80s, if only for its transatlantic impact, was snapped on September 16, 1989 after a visit to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas from high-ranking Soviet official Boris Yeltsin.

Wanting to catch a glimpse of everyday American life, the former mayor of Moscow made an impromptu visit to Randall’s grocery store in Cedar Lake, an unincorporated community in Matagorda County not far from the space center. The brief visit not only changed his worldview, but also the future of the nation he represented.

The intense stoicism for which Russians are known disappeared when Yeltsin, according to the Houston Chronicle, “roamed the aisles … nodding his head in amazement” as he marveled at the inventory of goods that transcended his wildest expectations, though he was equally enthusiastic over basic novelties that Americans tend to take for granted like cheese samples and frozen pudding pops.

Discovering that stores like this were ubiquitous throughout the United States further astonished Yeltsin. But it was his first experience in what was practically a mom-and-pop shop that stuck with him most, later lamenting in his autobiography: “When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people.”

His view of communism forever shattered, Yeltsin’s allegiance to the repressive collectivism of the USSR ended that day, soon committing himself to reform Russia’s government-controlled socialist market into a capitalist economy upon being sworn in as his nation’s first post-Soviet president in July 1991.

Alas the cronyism that remained in place even after the fall of the Soviet Union only stifled Yeltsin’s aspiration to lift Russia from the mire in which his country had been ensnared for so long. Yeltsin stepped down as president of Russia on the last day of 1999. His successor was, and remains, Vladimir Putin.