The International Chess Federation (FIDE) would support Dnipropetrovsk as a candidate city for several prestigious tournaments – the World Chess Championship, World Chess Olympiad, and the World Children’s Chess Olympiad, the FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced at the opening ceremony of the 1st International Chess Art Week which was held in Dnipropetrovsk through April 25.
The regional governor Oleksandr Vilkul, who has also been an avid chess player since the age of five, promised the FIDE chief to discuss this interesting proposal when both men would be playing chess.
The head of the regional state administration and Ilyumzhinov were the first to move their pieces at the Palace of Students that hosted an 80-board simultaneous chess display involving local players and an Israeli grandmaster Alik Gershon who holds several Guinness World Records.
Despite the grandmaster forecasting he would beat all his opponents in four hours, the display lasted about six hours, with Gershon losing 7 games and playing another 17 to a draw, even though his adversaries were mostly children.
“It is my first encounter with Dnipropetrovsk chess players in 20 years, and I am pleasantly surprised by their mastery of the game,” the grandmaster noted.
The International Chess Art Week is a part of the Dnipropetrovsk region creation 80th anniversary celebrations, involving world-class chess players and more than 5,000 chess amateurs from the region as well as Russia and Belarus.
