“I am proud that I befriended Grandma Vanga, Dalai Lama XIV, Patriarch Alexy, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev and Muammar Gaddafi in my short life... Now it is time to become friends with Zhores Ivanovich. I bow to your scientific genius”, said Ilyumzhinov to the Nobel Laureate.
The President of the International Chess Federation put the golden badge of FIDE on the scientist’s lapel and presented the chess set autographed by the Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin.
“I started to play chess in 1935 when I was five years old. My brother made me keen to this game. Our country has always been an outstanding chess power. The matches between Botvinnik and Levenfish caused great interest in the pre-war Leningrad”, stressed Alferov.
After the ceremony, the president of FIDE gave a lecture to students and pupils of the Alferov centre. He devoted his speech to chess.
Ilyumzhinov said that his organization consists of about two hundred countries, thus he has to constantly travel round the world. He meets with at least two heads of different states every week.
“For example, one morning I have breakfast with the President of South Korea. It is a developed country. You should recall Samsung, Hyundai, Kia and latest generation of computers... And just a few hours later I find myself in North Korea with the millions of soldiers in the squares and where the average salary of teachers is one dollar per month... See the difference? Sometimes it seems to me that the world is crazy”, said Ilyumzhinov.
Wars and religious conflicts, economic crises and international terrorism have jarring effect on Earth... Traveling around the world and seeing these events, the ex-president of Kalmykia thought about the origin of those problems.
“Does humanity lack oil and gas, gold and diamonds? Not at all, there is plenty!”, he said. “We lack one simple principle - ‘first think and then make a move’. The world is in need of the clear headed leaders”.
According to the president of FIDE, chess is the best exercise for the brain.
“Six hundred million people play chess worldwide. We plan to increase this number to a billion by 2020”, - shared his thoughts Ilyumzhinov. “One billion of thinking people is a good basis to stabilize the situation on the planet. The number of wrong decisions in the world would be significantly reduced because of chess”...
The FIDE President believes that it is feasible to carry out his plan. The most important thing is that governments should agree with the Federation on the implementation of the "Chess in Schools" programme.
“Chess was implemented not only in schools but also in kindergartens when I was the President of Kalmykia. After three years the children’s performance had increased by several times! The younger generation is taught to play chess in many countries. Unfortunately, Russia is lagging behind. Chess is mandatory in some regions only.
“I was shocked when I heard about my inclusion in the sanctions list: how, what, why?”, continued Ilyumzhinov. “However, since I was challenged, I decided to act and thanked God for the opportunity of suing the most powerful, sophisticated and wealthy rival - the US government. I claimed 50 billion dollars as compensation in the lawsuit on protection of my honour, dignity and business reputation.
According to the head of FIDE, the US Supreme Court filed his claim on 23rd of February 2016 but no decision has been made yet.
“Let's see how it ends”, summed up Ilyumzhinov. He added that he would donate the money to create a fund to support democratic reforms in the United States if he wins.
Maxim Syu