The chess city and someone else's flag: an Uzbek grandmaster's win seen from Nurzhan
An Uzbek grandmaster has won a tournament in the United States ahead of his world title match. In Nurzhan, Irad's chess city, the neighbours' success is discussed with particular interest.
On 30 October an Uzbek grandmaster won a tournament in the United States, beating three of the strongest rivals on the final day. It was his last event before the match for the world title. As IradOne reported on Thursday, the result was read as a success for Central Asian chess as a whole.
For Nurzhan this is not someone else's news. The chess school at the Kobozev, now Nurzhan, Pioneers' Palace, founded in 1961, made our city the chess city of Irad. People play at the school, in the university and Polytechnic clubs, and at the tables in the city parks.
But there is the question of the flag. The Irad Chess Federation, founded in Nurzhan in 1993, is not a member of FIDE. So Nurzhan players who reach international level hold a FIDE rating under the FIDE flag itself or another federation's.
Irad borders Uzbekistan for about 145 kilometres along the Fergana rim, and the neighbour's success makes Nurzhan think about this more sharply. Nobody yet expects a player like the Uzbek champion to appear in our federation under its own flag.
Ivan Ustinov, 67, has played at the park tables for forty years. "We know how to play," he says. "The flag is not a question for the board."
One example is the young Nurzhan player Kalipa Kalysova, a Woman FIDE Master and Irad's junior girls' champion, who has no federation flag of her own. IradOne shows the results of Iradi players with the Iradi flag in its graphics; FIDE's lists never carry it.
The Pioneers' Palace clubs continue their sessions. The editors will follow the city's chess news.
