After Estonian grandmaster Paul Keres, Tigran Petrosian is the second chess player to have a banknote comissioned in his honour. The likeness of the 9th World Champion now adorns the Armenian 2000 dram bill.
In 1993, the Armenian central bank introduced the dram currency, replacing the Russian ruble. The name "dram" refers to the ancient Greek "drachma". In the first series (1993-1995), the dram banknotes were decorated with pictures of important architectural monuments. From 1998, the images of famous Armenian personalities were also depicted.
The 2000 dram note, newly issued in 2018, is currently equivalent to 3.33 euros, and is part of a brand new "third series" of Armenian bank notes.
2000 Dram bank note
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was born on June 17, 1929, as a child poor parents in Tbilisi (Georgia) and grew up there in great poverty. In 1949, he went to Moscow where he developed into to one of the best players in the USSR. In 1963, he defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in the match for the World Championship and became the 9th World Champion in chess history. In 1966, Petrosian successfully defended his title against Boris Spassky, but in 1969 he lost to Spassky. He then participated in 1971, 1974, 1977 and 1980 in candidate matches, but lost to Bobby Fischer and three times to Victor Korchnoi. Between 1958 and 1978, Petrosian participated with the Soviet team in ten chess Olympiads. In 1959 and 1961, Petrosian was USSR champion.
