In chess, the Russians keep doing what they want

BarcelonaDespite the sanctions that Russian sport has received due to the attack on Ukraine, in the coming months the country’s chess players will be able to listen to its national anthem and play under its flag, as if nothing had happened. “It is a sport where they do what they want. It is a scandal that they try to flee to Asia to avoid the sanctions that the European Chess Union has imposed on them”, complained Malcolm Pein, delegate of the English federation and great teacher In chess, the Russians always play with White and win. For more than twenty-five years they have ruled FIDE, the International Chess Federation. It is a very popular sport in a land that saw Emperor Nicholas II create the title of “grandmaster” in 1914 by offering it to the five finalists of the tournament he had organized in St. Petersburg. Russia is the country of Karpov and Kasparov (although he was born in Baku), of Mikhail Botvinnik and Aleksandr Alekhin. During the Cold War, chess was also the scene of great duels between the Soviets and the Americans, such as the famous one in 1972 in Iceland between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spasski. Chess is so popular in Russia that after the fall of the USSR, Moscow worked hard to gain control of FIDE. Thus, in 1995 the Russian politician Kirsan Iliumzhinov was elected as president of the international federation. It was the beginning of Russian rule in the offices.

For more than twenty years, Iliumjinov controlled the sport in a very controversial style. Iliumzhinov is a Kalmyk, a people of Mongolian origin that has been in Russia for centuries, especially in Kalmykia. Most Kalmyks, like Iliumzhinov himself, are Buddhists and form one of the country’s most important ethnic minorities. A diversity that Stalin did not understand and that is why he deported thousands, like Ilyumzhinov’s parents, to Siberia. And that the family was loyal to the Soviet regime: the father had won medals during the Second World War and was himself named Kirsan in honor of a communist great-uncle who was a hero of the civil war. Ilyumzhinov served two years in the Red Army, worked in a factory and, like so many important Russian politicians, took advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union to get rich through privatizations. In less than two years he went from a worker to a millionaire. The right thing was to support Boris Yeltsin when it was not clear who would rule the new Russia. This is how he became his strongman in Kalmykia, where he was elected president in 1993 and launched projects such as the “chess city”, a luxury complex full of pavilions, museums and monuments dedicated to the game.

“He is one of the most surprising characters in world sport”, explains the Dane Flemming Rose, the person responsible for the interview in which Iliumjínov explained how he was abducted by aliens in September 1997: “I spent a whole day in the ‘space with them. They were like people, dressed in yellow. I was in my apartment and they flew me with them. I haven’t explained much, because people don’t believe you, but my assistants got scared because they couldn’t find me. And, suddenly, he was already back in bed.” In fact, Iliumzhinov claims that chess was created by extraterrestrials. The president of FIDE defended that “chess is not politics”, but the facts contradict him. In 2011 he met with Muammar al-Gaddafi to promote chess in Libya and played a live game there. The civil war had already begun and, in fact, it was the last time Gaddafi was seen alive in public. In 2012 it was his turn to visit Syria, with the war already underway, to do business with Bashar al-Assad. Meetings that led to him being added to the American blacklist, which is why he could not enter the United States. Despite everything, in 2014 he was elected FIDE president again and defeated Garry Kasparov, the legendary chess player and very critical of Vladimir Putin.

But Ilyumzhinov fell. In 2018, he was forced to fold due to the sanctions received, because he breached the federation’s code of ethics by doing business with his companies. In addition, he was sanctioned for his business dealings in Syria. In the end he folded. And it seemed that the winds of change would finally arrive at FIDE. But no. All attempts to try to change things inside chess, so far, have not worked. Danish grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen, coach of world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, who ran for FIDE vice-president in 2018 with the team of Greek Georgios Makropoulos, knows this well. They lost claiming that they could not compete with the Russians, who would have invested more than 2 million euros in the campaign to elect Arkady Dvorkovich, a former personal assistant in the government of Vladimir Putin. This young politician submitted his candidacy at the last minute, when everyone assumed that the Greek would win. Dvorkovich played hard to win.

A party with mermaids in the pool

The 2018 elections were held during the Chess Olympiad in the Georgian city of Batumi. Dvorkovich arrived in a private jet and hosted dinners and parties for the other candidates. “He organized a party that was talked about a lot. The people who were there explained that there were girls dressed as mermaids in a swimming pool,” explained Heine Nielsen. The very next day, Dvorkovich got 103 votes and Makropoulos 78. Geopolitics and money moved to elect someone close to Putin and to maintain Russian control of FIDE. Dvorkovich had presided over the Russian Chess Federation, a sport he loves because his father had been a prominent international arbiter, as well as one of the confidants of world champion Anatoly Karpov. An economics graduate, Dvorkovich grew up in the shadow of Dmitri Medvedev, one of Putin’s trusted men, until reaching the presidency of FIDE after holding positions such as the coordinator of the organizing committee of the 2018 FIFA World Cup .

But the war in Ukraine has almost succeeded in ending his tenure twice. First, when he criticized the invasion: “Wars are the worst thing there is, my thoughts are with the Ukrainian civilians.” A lot of politicians criticized him, claiming that he was a “fifth columnist” critical of Putin. Dvorkovich quickly understood that he had to change his speech and in the following public appearance he already praised “the courage of the Russian soldiers”. The second critical moment was when some FIDE members defended sanctioning the Russians and demanded his resignation because they considered him too close to Putin. He also got away with it thanks to the support of the same delegates who had elected him president: those who had gone to the mermaid party in Batumi. Almost all of them were not European, because in the European federation, Dvorkovich is in the minority.

These days, therefore, the Russian Chess Federation has just formalized the request to leave the European Chess Federation and move on to compete as an Asian Chess Federation. It can do this because Russia geographically spans both continents. The reason for the move is to avoid the sanctions that have been imposed on the Russians in European sport, where they are not allowed to compete under their flag or with the anthem. Russian chess players can only participate in tournaments as guests, without any reference to their country, as is the case in sports such as tennis. In the Asian federation, on the other hand, the sanctions do not exist because the Russians were not part of it. With the change, they ensure that they can compete as if nothing had happened from May 1, when they will formalize the entry.

In recent months, pressure on the Moscow government has led Dvorkovich to make some concessions, including giving up tournament-sponsoring companies that were owned by members of Putin’s government. In the end, the pressure has caused Russian chess to move to Asia, taking advantage of the fact that there will not be sanctions imposed on them because they have allies there, especially the Chinese and Iranians. In fact, the Chess Association of Iran has not been sanctioned despite the fact that some of its players refused to play matches against representatives of Israel. In theory, if someone refuses to play a game they should be penalized, but this has not been the case. The Iranian federation, therefore, will probably be a great ally of the Russian one to avoid sanctions from the first of May. Russian chess will be able to compete with some normalcy and Dvorkovich will continue to rule FIDE.