Well, it’s high time to recall the historical decree of first president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. After Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was elected first president of Kalmykia in 1993, he introduced the teaching of chess as a separate subject in local schools with his first decree “On State Support of Chess”.

This was the beginning of chess training throughout Kalmykia. Since then, this subject is compulsory in all schools and kindergartens of Kalmykia. Later, the Chess in Schools global programme was originated from this initiative. It should be noted that this programme is the favourite brainchild of the fourth FIDE President.
Recall that Ilyumzhinov launched the Chess in Schools programme in Kalmykia in 1995. This programme has had a very positive effect on children. They not only learned to play chess well, but the overall development of children also increased markedly. This, in fact, is the first step towards the implementation of Ilyumzhinov’s global peacekeeping project “One Billion Chess Players”.
Today, this programme works not only in many regions of Russia, but also in many countries of the world. Good news is excellent results of pupils of the Kalmyk chess schools whose success glorify Kalmykia and Russia.
The female international master Dinara Dordzhieva is a unique phenomenon of our chess. It’s worth mentioning that in 2016, when she was only 16 years old, she became the champion of Russia in rapid chess, and then won the title of champion of Russia in classical chess among girls under 21!
And it’s a wonder how she won both of these championships! She was ahead of the nearest pursuer by a point in rapid chess and by one and a half points in classic chess! In other words, the Kalmyk chess player, even then, despite her young age, was much stronger than her older and more famous rivals. Chess experts call the success of the Kalmyk chess player “an outstanding achievement”.