On the Meaning of Life

In a long interview with journalist Anastasia A. Ratskevich of Sport-Express, three-time Russian Women’s Chess Champion Aleksandra Yuryevna Goryachkina (pictured above with her mother, Larisa Viktorovna Matvienko) discussed at length about her chess career, which, in fact, is a family affair, with her parents taking care of her every need. On the other hand they can hardly help her with PR and brand parternships, so most of the burden falls upon her shoulders. In fact, there’s no gossip on her, except that she has named her cat Buffon, after the former goalkeeper of Juventus. Quite inevitably, the interview touched upon the issue of the change of sports citizenship, which is the price set by the Western cartel on Russian chess practitioners. But Goryachkina, unsurprisingly, has clear ideas about it. She does not regard it as a treason at all. “It’s not a betrayal if students go to study in another country. So why not we? Yet, again, a sporting life is very short and can be exhausting. In such matters one is the master of one’s own destiny”, she said. And her? “So far I have been spared such an existential conflict — and hopefully I shall be spared in the future too”. Photo: Fedor Uspensky/Sport-Express.