Chess masters Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand will get an artistic surrounding for their duel as one of Moscow finest art museums, the Tretyakov Gallery was chosen to host their world championship mind clash.
The Gallery’s Director, Irina Lebedeva, and Chairman of the Supervisory Council of the Russian Chess Federation, Arkady Dvorkovich, have signed all the required documents on Monday. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, and businessman Andrey Filatov, who’ll sponsor the event, were also present at the signing. “I want to thank the organizers of the tournament for contacting us,” Irina Lebedeva told Gazeta.ru. “Chess is a sport, but there's a lot from art in it. We are happy to host the match here. The grand opening will be held May 10 in the Vrubel Hall and the games itself will be played in the Engineering Building, in the conference hall with seats for 400 people. A press-center will be organized nearby. This zone will be cut off from the rest of the premises, so that the match won’t interfere with the Tretyakov Gallery’s usual operation.” Vishy Anand of India, who’s been World Champion since 2007, will defend his crown against Israel’s Boris Gelfand on May 10 – 31.The chess masters will play until one of them earns 6.5 points. A tie-break is provided if Anand and Gelfand are level after 12 games. The prize fund of the match will be over $2.5 million, with the winner getting 60 per cent of the sum. The State Tretyakov Gallery can boast to be the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The collection contains more than 130,000 exhibits, ranging from Theotokos of Vladimir and Andrey Rublev's Trinity to the monumental Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky and the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich.