Museum of Chess inaugurated in Moscow

by Albert Silver
9/27/2014 – It was six years in the making, but the highly anticipated Museum of Chess in Moscow was finally inaugurated to great fanfare. Behind its doors, fans and players will find chess sets, many of which are the envy of collectors, rare books that quicken the heartbeat of seasoned bibliophiles, and trophies won by the Russian and Soviet chess players at the most prestigious tournaments.

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Andrey Filatov conducts a tour for Irina Lebedeva, the director of the Tretyakov Gallery

Valentine Gunina, Olga Girya and Sergei Rublevsky enjoy one of the exhibits

Vladimir Medina takes a private memento (picture) of chess culture with him

Natalia, Alexandra and Konstantin Kosteniuk

Now the most interesting exhibits find their homes in the beautiful new rooms so familiar to all fans of the chess mansion on Gogol Boulevard. The opening was a great success helped by the fact that none of the rooms were closed, working completely from day one, and welcomed walk-in visitors and guests from the opening to closing as if it had been running for years.

Sergey Karjakin and his wife, Galia

Maria Fominykh, Alexander Morozevich and Murad Amannazarov do a little schmoozing

Dmitry Oleynikov shows the exhibition to noted chess philanthropist Oleg Skvortsov and
his wife Natalia. Oleg Skvortsov has been the inspiration both conceptually and financially
behind the prestigious Zurich Chess Challenge events.

As the story goes, this chess set once belonged to Alexander Alekhine. Now they will be
displayed in the museum.

At the opening ceremony, the museum's inauguration was not the only point of celebration, and the Women's Olympic team, fresh from their fantastic victory in Tromso were also honored. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the President of Russia, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the RCF said that the museum is yet another sign of a new upsurge of interest in chess in the country. Finally, it was time for congratulations, and fittingly: gifts.

Andrey Filatov, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Dmitry Peskov, and Alexander Zhukov

The museum curator Tatiana Kolesnikovich

The 2014 Olympic champions

Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich donated to the museum a rare exhibit: the first Russian chess book, published in 1821. A pleasant and unexpected surprise also came from FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: "All national federations of the world, ranging from 'A'- Afghanistan, Angola, Algeria, and ending with Jamaica, Japan and even the island of Java, decided to donate a chess set - sometimes donating national variants - to the Museum of Chess."

Alexandra Kosteniuk gifted a chess suitcase in which her ​​father
wrote in 1990: "To Sasha, the future world champion in chess !!!"

Valentine Gunina, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Sergey Rublevsky, Kateryna Lagno and Olga Girya
with an ice horse

Olga Streltsova and Olga Voronina prepared this chess festival long and carefully

Source: Russian Chess Federation


Born in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, where he completed his Baccalaureat, and after college moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He had a peak rating of 2240 FIDE, and was a key designer of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News. He is also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications, and the content creator of the YouTube channel, Chess & Tech.

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