06.08.2018

A film about chess to be made in Serbia

A letter from the Serbian director Simo Brdar came to the head of FIDE’s Moscow office. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov found this letter to be very interesting, and we publish it unabridged:

"Dear Kirsan Nikolaevich. At the moment we started work on a documentary about chess. To be more precise, this film is about the amazing chess player Rade Tsviyich who lives in a remote village of Akhmetov Tsi in Republika Srpska.

He is over 80 years old ordinary peasant devoted to chess. He played chess by correspondence with Svetozar Gligoric for 4 years. Eventually, he offered the famous grandmaster a draw on which Gligoric agreed (Rade's  chess position was better, but he decided to let the game - played for a number of years with the multiple champion of Yugoslavia, the winner of the 9th Chess Olympiad - end in a draw).
Everyone was a great chess lover in his native village; chess tournaments were held regularly at the local school and were as popular as football matches today - thousands of people came from all over the area. Akhmetov Tsi residents became multiple champions of regional tournaments. These days, people leave those places and the school stopped working, but Rade looks after the school in memory of the tournaments and in the hope that someday chess will come back here and this beautiful village will be revived once again.
There is an idea that our famous Sergei Karyakin should play a game of chess with Rade Tsviyich in an abandoned school of this Serbian village, which keeps the spirit of passionate love for chess. Organizing a small tournament, which may become an annual tradition and attract the people from the local cities, will help to revive the village of Akhmetov Tsi.
You might be interested in participating in this project due to your love for chess and the support rendered by you to various chess tournaments."