On 16 December, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov received an Instagram letter from a fellow countrywoman, Galina Yklymova (Bochaeva), who came to enjoy the beauty of Istanbul with her husband Rasul. Galina graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. She won the Miss Elista contest in 1998. Then she, and two other girls, who took second and third places, were congratulated by the first president of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.Galina said that it was the Chess Olympiad that influenced her decision to become a translator. Now the eldest daughter of Galina and Rasul is a student at Moscow State University studying at the faculty of Asian and African countries. She has chosen the specialty "political science" and now studies the Arabic language. Galina said that her daughter came from Moscow to Elista to finish the last three years of school, since Kalmykia’s schools have a very high-quality education.
“It is nice to recognize,” Ilyumzhinov noted, “that my main message has been successfully implemented. After all, the main goal of the World Chess Olympiad was to open Kalmykia for the world and to open the world for Kalmykia! ”
