Republic of Kalmykia

Posts Tagged ‘Syria’

BAKU, September 11. /TASS/. President of the International Chess Federation [FIDE] Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in a letter to the U.S. President Barack Obama asked for the U.S. citizenship.

Earlier, he sent a letter to the U.S. president and received a notification it was registered. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chessman Cometh [ En | Ru ]

An interview with globe-trotting chess promoter, former president, and freelance diplomat Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

INTERVIEW BY JOSHUA E. KEATING. MAY 9, 2012

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov garners an awful lot of press for the president of the World Chess Federation. But he’s not exactly your average chess buff. From 1993 to 2010, he was president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia and became known for his efforts to transform the remote Buddhist region into an international chess mecca as well as for his frank comments about an encounter with aliens he claims to have had in 1997. (He was also widely criticized for his autocratic rule over the impoverished republic.) Read the rest of this entry »