Chess puts republic on the map
Published: 30 October, 2008, 05:44
The President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, had a dream to make his tiny homeland in Russia’s southern steppes the chess centre of the world.
Ilyumzhinov, who is a passionate chess player, president of the FIDE world chess association, a billionaire and so far the only president of Kalmykia, has put a lot of effort into making it come true. Today the game is everywhere in the republic’s capital, Elista.
In 1996, Kalmykia hosted World Chess Championship with Grand Masters Topalov and Kramnik going head to head.
Two years later, an entire chess city was built to house the World Olympiad. Nowadays, it provides workshops with former champions and private tuition for a select few.
“Becoming a great chess player requires hard work and discipline,” says Russian Fast Chess Champ of 2004, Dolgan Niudleev. “Illyumzhinov has done so much for the game here. Without him, none this would be possible.”
The rest of the sprawling, gated complex is largely empty most of the time, but it regularly houses conferences and important guests, like the Dalai Lama of Vladimir Putin.
The rows of suburban terraces are available for purchase, but Kalmykia is a republic without a middle class. It’s economically stunted and with staggeringly high unemployment. Some argue the money could have been better spent.
“The chess city uses a huge amount of electricity and heating and needs constant maintenance. No one even uses or needs it,” says journalist Valery Badmayev.
But Illyuzhinov is convinced that chess can have great social and educational benefits. The game has even made its way into the national curriculum and is compulsory for all children until the age of 12.
The president says: “Chess is my philosophy, my idea. People must first think and that move.”
It’s an idea that’s been a part of Kalmykian culture for centuries, but the extent to which chess’s more recent rebirth is a genuine grass-roots revival, or simply contrived egoism, is far from black and white.
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