Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: "Chess will improve school results

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: "Chess will improve school results
Source: http://kazan2011.fide.com

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is a frequent guest in Kazan now. No surprise: he’d been supposed to be such with the view to organize and stage Candidates Matches 2011. But as it turned out, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov started his acquaintance with our city many years ago, in his childhood. - My first visit to Kazan happened in 1977, - told FIDE President - I took part in the Pioneer’s Volga Region Festival, held in the capital of Tatarstan. Such festivals normally involved amateur art activities, sport competitions and chess. I used to be a captain of a chess team. I held the first grade then, but very soon turned to Candidate Master, and a year later won Kalmykia ASSR Championship among grown-ups. However, speaking about the children’s impressions from Kazan and Tatarstan, I first remember your legendary chess player Rashid Nezhmetdinov. When I competed in Kazan, I realized, that chess were much popular there, than in my native Kalmykiya, and I felt somewhat envious. My pleasure to see now, that chess are enjoying warm support from the First President of the Republic of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev. And I am very grateful to him, that he accepted my offer to become the Counselor of the FIDE President. The present day President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov pays significant attention to chess as well. We are keeping warm relations since his visit to Kalmykia, when being a RT Prime Minister. Chess are in the Universiade 2013 program, and that witnesses the importance of our sport for Tatarstan as a whole. - Let me apologize for my coming question. Anatoly Karpov paid a working visit to Naberezhnye Chelny last year, in the framework of his FIDE President election campaign. Did you feel somewhat negative towards Tatarstan after that? - Not at all! I won elections and immediately offered Anatoly Karpov to collaborate for the benefit of FIDE as a Vice President. However, he turned down my suggestion, since the post would require too much time from him, and he would not afford that. At the moment, Karpov serves as Official Ambassador of FIDE in international organizations. We are keeping in touch regularly, having a word not less than once a month. As a matter of fact, I was sincerely pleased to have Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov as my opponents. It had been such an honor for me to compete against such a merited chess players, the 12th and 13th World Champions. Their participation drew close public attention to FIDE Presidential elections and made up a floor for discussion, priceless with the view to progress. For quite long, I had been criticized for my passion to develop chess geography, introducing new non-chess cities to stage top chess tournaments (for instance, Astrakhan, Ekaterinburg, Krasnodar and etc). People wanted to have them in Paris, London, New York and in Moscow. However, I realized, that those megalopolises were full with the top sport competitions, while the so called “province” would be excited to have our tournaments. In this way, we have been promoting chess so far. To say, last year we conducted a tournament in Thailand. And now they have already entered chess to schools. Turkey had had no significant players, and they have European champions at the moment. Vietnam used to be “terra incognita” and what we have there now is a strong squad of chess players. I will go to Sri-Lanka immediately from Kazan in order to partake in the Closing ceremony of the Asian Chess Championships in Meshkhed, Iran (scheduled on 9 May, 2011). Who has ever heard of Meshkhed in relation with chess activity? None, while chess is enjoying a boom there. Another example, we conducted Women’s World Championship 3 years ago in Nalchik, together with Kabardino-Balkariya President Arsen Kanokov. Chess had had back seats mostly, but the game grew in popularity in course of the events. We saw people coming to Nalchik from distant villages, grandparents with their grandchildren, to watch the grandmasters play. After that, Kanokov established chess sections in all the population aggregates of his Republic. Women’s World Championship in Ekaterinburg promoted chess there as well. Good dynamics pictured in Khanty-Mansiysk. To begin with, they just tasted the game, and last year they hosted World Chess Olympiad. It was a major success! Now they entered chess to schools and are enjoying it. Last year, Astrakhan conducted Men’s FIDE Grand-Prix, and after it Astrakhan’s Governor exclaimed “Why not to stage one more tournament here after all?!” - The recent Russian Club Championship depicted an interesting trend there. The current winner, Moscow club “SHSM-64” was but an international squad with the significant number of foreign players. - Well, and what’s wrong with that? - The small number of world-brand famous Soviet school representatives in the Russian Champion’s composition. Please, don’t take me wrong, I am not against internationalization, though the mentioned above fact makes me somewhat upset. In earlier times our chess players went abroad to enforce foreign clubs and teams. - Nothing special about that from my viewpoint. I am the FIDE President, and FIDE is a multinational body, consisting of 172 country-members. For me, the more strong chess players transfer around the world the better. Their interference into the local floors will stimulate and motivate the locals’ progress and upgrading. The major thing here is to have the balance. There is no doubt, it’s much easier to buy grandmasters, than to bring them up since early childhood. In this respect, I set up one of my first run tasks as FIDE President – to enter chess to schools. With the view to make it possible, I visit countries and regions, to say I have already been to 29 countries this year. Few days ago I was in Poland to officially open the World School Children’s Championship. I went to Tbilisi for the Opening ceremony of the Women’s European Chess Championship. The more people play chess in each region, the easier it will be in the future to make up professional and amateur teams out of the local born chess players. - As far as I know, the program for chess development has already brought good fruits in your native Kalmykia. - Do you see, that you have just told me a perfect example of the our job done? 17 years ago, I signed a degree to develop chess in schools of Kalmykia. Chess were at a back seat then, we had hardly a first grade player in our Republic. Facts do speak louder than words, and we now have Ernesto Inarkiyev, Sanan Syugirov and others. We were supposed to wait up for 9 years for the fruits to come. In 2003, Syugirov won World Championship in his age category, the first time in his chess career, and now he is already two-time world champion. Last week Dinara Dorzhieva won J14 World Championship. And the most important thing here, is that 100% of Kalmykia school children can play chess. This played well for their school results as well. According to the Russian Ministry of Education, for the recent two years we have been keeping the 1st place in school results of children among 85 Russian regions. Andrey Fursenko, Russian Minister on Education got interested in our phenomenon and sent specialists to Kalmykia to find out the key to the success. They stated in the end, that it was chess to bring such a good results. - Pinochet had been awarded with the black belt in karate. Why not to follow his example? I mean for you to have a “grandmaster” rank for your contribution in chess... - Why should I have it? (Smiling) I play for myself quite well enough. Chess is my passion. Once I calculated, that I have allocated around $60 billion in chess development within 15 years at the post. I am happy, that the money are working, and that FIDE has been preserved as single body and didn’t split into parts. We have the one strong Federation, one champion and everything goes well. - Chess has been included on the World Summer Universiade 2013 Program, and this is definitely a step forward. Are there any chances for chess to enter Olympics? - Still waiting for it. IOC President Jacques Rogge has become a bit softer in his refusals, than he used to be. I consider, it would be much easier to enter Winter Olympics, but there is a rule, that the game-candidate should certainly have ice or snow involved. We offer to introduce there a slight change and add “or intellectual sports”. Besides, there is a window in the Winter Olympic Games Program within 03.00 – 07.00 p.m. perfectly fit for chess. Djaudat Abdullin, specially for kazan2013.com Translation: Olga Kamardina