THE CENTRAL ASIAN GAMBIT

For a very long time, in most places across the world, except for a few places where the game originated and spread from (like India), chess was an exotic, expensive entertainment for rulers or very rich and noble people. The concubines of the Ottoman sultan could be trained in the art of chess, but people played backgammon, not chess, in the coffeehouses of Istanbul. The emirs of Bukhara were excellent players who collected chess manuals, but in the teahouses of the city, the people played dice. Magnificent chess boards were presented to various kings, dukes, and cardinals in Europe, but again, the common people mostly played dice, and in the fifteenth century, with the development of the printing and paper industry, cards became popular.

Chess is a complex, long game that requires expensive equipment: ancient chess boards in stone and wood were the work of jewelers and carvers, and there were no ‘simple’ versions of the pieces before the advent of more or less efficient lathes.

Moreover, for a very long time, it was assumed that chess should be taught only to the upper and educated classes. ‘Common people’ had no use for chess at all—after all, why cultivate tactical and strategic thinking in the lower classes? This opinion prevailed until the end of the eighteenth century, when chess became popular among a wider range of people, thanks, among other things, to a serious reduction in the cost of producing simple boards and pieces.

The game did not fully grip the public imagination until the end of the nineteenth century, when influential chess organizations began to organize regular tournaments that received wide media coverage. The best games of these tournaments were published in news columns and established chess societies and schools, even for children. A global milestone was the organization of the first international tournaments: the London Tournament in 1851 and the Baden Tournament in 1870 (both won by the German player Adolf Anderssen).

People fell in love with chess and began to play it enthusiastically, forgetting all class and national boundaries. The sport was filled with the spirit of cosmopolitanism, faith in the power of the human mind, becoming a symbol of the era of scientific and technological progress. Fans soon created chess societies and circles, and the first such circle in Kazakhstan was set up in Almaty (then Verny) in 1889. The historian Alois Nazarov, local to the area, who worked in the funds of the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan, wrote: ‘In the archive folder, I found a document that deserves careful attention. It is the charter of the Verny Amateur Chess Club. There is no doubt about the seriousness of this document. And not only because it was printed in a printing house, but because it was approved by the government of the Russian Empire, by a deputy of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant-General Shebeko. This happened on 27 January 1889. But the chess circle in Verny had already come into existence, not quite officially though, in 1887, when the first steps were taken to acquire the necessary equipment.’

The names of the champions—Steinitz, Lasker1¹Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austro-Hungarian, and later American, chess player, who was World Champion from 1886 to 1894. Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, who was World Champion from 1894 to 1921.—were pronounced with joy. However, the International Chess Federation (known by its French acronym, FIDE) was founded only in 1924. Before that, world championship tournaments were conducted in a semi-private manner, usually between just two or a few players who were considered the best or strongest in the world. The FIDE created the rules of the competition, established the order in which it was held, and confirmed the rules of the game. Indeed, this is where the history of chess as we know it begins.

The attitude of the Soviet authorities toward chess in the first decades of the Soviet era was somewhat erratic. On the one hand, chess was promoted in every possible way. According to a number of researchers, such as Andrew Soltis, the author of Soviet Chess 1917–1991, the game was deliberately encouraged by the authorities, who saw it as a means of distracting the intelligentsia from dissent.

It was hard to find another intellectual activity that was so devoid of political influence in nature. Any art was potentially dangerous because it stimulated free thought and imagination, and any science could lead to discoveries undesirable to Soviet ideology (bear in mind the persecution of Soviet geneticists whose research threatened the beloved Soviet idea of ‘cultivating a new man’). Chess, on the other hand, was confined to the sixty-four squares of the board and virtually ignored the existence of the outside world.

It was also a safe way to present the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to the world as a progressive, intelligent, and advanced country. We know that Stalin personally supported the holding of the 1925 International Chess Tournament in the USSR. In an era of total espionage, Moscow opened its doors to hundreds of journalists, chess officials, grand masters, and their companions. And the freshly minted Soviet citizens embraced the tournament with enthusiasm. After all the wars, revolutions, and dictatorships of the proletariat, such a noisy and joyful international event seemed like a return not only to a normal life, but to a new, immeasurably better one. The world, too, thought that the Bolsheviks were not as terrible as the aging emigrants made them out to be—indeed, could the people who had organized such a beautiful chess festival have committed such atrocities? We find a vivid image of ‘New Vasyuki, the chess capital of the world’ in the great satirical work The Little Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, which is, of course, an allusion to the Moscow tournament.

On the other hand, however, the authorities were panicking with every instance of self-organization of enthusiasts. Chess, with its schools, clubs, competitions, and tournaments, threatened to become a breeding ground for the emergence of ‘undesirable cells’, which could be particularly dangerous given players’ high levels of intelligence.

Therefore, although chess organizations were never subjected to such an all-out crackdown like, for example, the Philatelist Association (many of their members were repressed for having ‘connections with foreigners under the guise of exchanging stamps’) and societies of radio amateurs (which were also purged now and then on suspicion of radio espionage), there were selective reprisals against chess players, especially outside the large cities.

The first republican championship in Kazakhstan (or what was then the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (ASSR)) was held in 1934. It was a difficult time, immediately following the period of famine and total repression. The chess championship seemed to be one of the events the party used to create a more festive atmosphere in the country, trying to divert public attention from recent tragedies and looming threats.

The tournament was won by Isidor Lopatnikov, mentioned in the documents as ‘the first category player from Uralsk’. There is practically no other information available about the first champion of Kazakhstan in the Soviet press, and we know nothing about his later fate, which is not surprising. Here is what Lopatnikov’s son Leonid, a well-known Russian economist, wrote in his biography:

My father, Isidor Pavlovich Lopatnikov, went to a place with an almost chess-like name, SLON [SLON was an acronym for one of the most brutal Soviet labor camps; it means ‘elephant’, which is the Russian name for the chess piece bishop]. I myself do not remember my father; after leaving the camp, he did not return to the family, but from the words of my mother and other relatives I know that the reason for his arrest was chess, which my father loved all his life (...) [He was arrested] for having close communications with the participants of the First Moscow International Chess Tournament. My father was one of the referees of the tournament. This year [written in 2005] marks the eightieth anniversary of this significant event in the country’s chess life, and in all likelihood, as has occurred many times on this practically ‘anniversary’, an amusing comedy, Chess Fever, will be shown on television. In it, documentary footage of the tournament has been inserted, and you can see my father in it. We always look forward to this moment—it was not cut out due to an oversight by the censors …’

After the camp, the chess player was not allowed to live in large cities and settled in Uralsk. The former prisoner who won the tournament was, of course, considered an unsuitable candidate for praise in the press, and the tournament itself was not mentioned too often in public.

Although much attention was paid to the sports education of schoolchildren and youth in the USSR in general, chess in the Kazakh ASSR was not exactly an orphan, but still a somewhat neglected child. For a long time, only eleven sports schools in the republic had chess departments, and not more than 400 children studied in them at the same time. It was only after the successful performance of Kazakh juniors at the All-Union championships of schoolchildren (young Kazakh sportsmen became champions in 1965 and 1967) that additional measures were taken. Thus, a Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren with a good chess section was opened in Almaty. Nevertheless, the majority of children in the republic, especially those living far from large cities, did not receive chess education except in the family circle.

At the same time, the game itself became very popular in the republic. According to the statistics of the Kazakh Chess Federation, from the 1960s until the 1980s, at least 200,000 Kazakhs played chess regularly for fun. Among them were several men and women who had received the official title of ‘Master of the Sport’. But Kazakhs did not demonstrate significant successes in the world, or even in the All-Union, chess arena, which is understandable if we look at the situation with chess sections and schools. In Georgia, children’s access to chess education was much better, especially after the appearance of a whole group of brilliant women chess players including Nona Gaprindashvili, Maya Chiburdanidze, Nana Alexandria, and Nana Ioseliani. The state financed chess clubs in all Georgian secondary schools, including rural ones.

However, it cannot be said that the USSR did not try to promote chess in the Kazakh ASSR. In 1968, the thirty-sixth USSR Chess Championship was held, and in 1980, Kazakhstan hosted an important and colorful quarterfinal for the World Champion title. Almaty was also home to a famous chess club, ‘On Kalinin Street’, where enthusiasts of the game regularly gathered. And yet, Soviet Kazakhstan was far from being a world chess center.

Soon after Kazakhstan gained its independence, everything changed dramatically. These changes were initiated right from the top: the country’s leaders purposely began to develop chess education, especially for children. The number of free sections and school clubs grew rapidly. High-ranking officials began to talk about the importance of chess. New tournaments were organized, championships were held, and top chess teachers were invited to the country. And the results of these efforts were not long in coming.

In 1995, Elvira Sakhatova became the first Kazakh grand master. In 1998, Fliura Khasanova received the title of ‘International Grand Master’. In the same year, Darmen Sadvakasov became the first junior world champion (the grand master is now the first vice-president of the Kazakh Chess Federation and vice-president of the Asian Chess Federation). Today, Kazakhstan has more than twenty grand masters, both men and women.

At the 2023 World Team Championship, Kazakhstan’s women chess players won the silver medal. The men’s team is still lagging behind, but it is also among the top twenty teams in the world. And then there are new victories of Kazakhstan’s junior players in 2024.

Kazakhstan is as invested in chess as ever. There are more than 7,000 chess clubs in Kazakhstan, and over 50,000 children and 200,000 adults play chess. In June 2022, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, proposed that chess be included as an optional subject in the school program of elementary schools; this way, at least 20 per cent of the children in the country would be covered by this program. In addition, the Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Chess in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2023–2027 document proposes other steps. Among them are training of chess teachers at universities, the creation of a network of chess clubs in apartment buildings, conducting a series of chess tournaments among journalists, officials, et cetera, in order to increase interest in the game in Kazakh society.

And it is not that the government of Kazakhstan just wants to be proud of grand masters and world champions. Full credit as always to the winners, but the original global goals are different.

Of the 50,000 children who are now seriously practicing chess, dozens, at best hundreds, will become successful professional athletes. But, as already discussed, chess is an intellectual sport that helps develop tactical and strategic thinking, especially if it is chess played since childhood. Many young chess players will eventually go into business, science, medicine, politics, programming, art, et cetera, but they will always be good at any activity that requires high intelligence, the ability to concentrate, and the ability to quickly calculate the consequences of their actions. Today, they are children, but tomorrow they will be the intellectual wealth of the country—the wealth that guarantees a dignified future for any society.