2008 Women’s World Chess Championship in Nalchik

On September 1st, 2008, I sent the following letter to Frederic Friedel – the co-founder of the chess news and database company ChessBase.com:

Dear Frederic,

Here is an open letter I’d like you to publish on ChessBase.com:

To the whole chess community:

Right now is a time of an awful injustice happening in front of everyone’s eyes, yet it looks like everyone is asleep or indifferent. 2008 Women’s World Chess Championship is boycotted by 9 players due to the proximity of the tournament venue to the war zone. Of course, I am also sympathetic to the organizers of the tournament, who prepared a wonderful opening ceremony and to the players who had this tournament in their schedule long before the start of Georgia – Russia war.

Still, I don’t understand that quietness of the chess players, arbiters, organizers and fans of the game.  Does everyone act according to the famous Russian saying: “One’s shirt is closer to one’s body” or Ukrainian saying “My house is the last one in the row, so I have no knowledge of what’s going on”. Of course, all former Soviets will know exactly what I am talking about, for all others, the translation is – “I better be quiet, so I don’t get poisoned by polonium”.

Come-on, Guys and Gals, it is time to wake up! There was a legitimate reason for the 9 players not to show up in the war zone and it makes no sense to say “Heck with it”.

Here is my challenge to the world chess community – Wouldn’t it be fair to organize a separate chess tournament with the 9 players who have qualified to participate, yet didn’t come to the 2008 Women World Chess Championship for safety reasons? The winner of that tournament will play against the winner of the tournament in Nalchik for the title of 2008 Women World Chess Champion.

Can anyone step-in on a short notice and run this tournament? It’s enough that the whole chess history was disrupted by substituting historical qualifying cycles and matches with “Ilyumzhinovka” tournaments. Let’s not diminish the title any further.

Sincerely,

Woman Chess Grandmaster Anjelina Belakovskaia.

I was hoping that Frederic will publish the text, or at least the idea, as I do believe it is unfair to dismiss Georgian (and not only) players & the whole Georgian chess culture & history and run “World Championship” without top guns.

However, I am not surprised to see that my e-mail wasn’t published – it is an easy and comfortable solution in this situation. As such, I am publishing it here.