Sewing the Rainbow

In the aftermath of his electoral victory, Andrey Vasilievich Filatov gave a long interview to Danila Borisovich Zhilyaev of Gazeta.Ru, in which he spoke about many hot topics such as the sporting bans on Russia that, in fact, preclude any national team from entering international team competitions. This is surely a sore point, but Filatov can at least console himself with the fact that the International Chess Federation (FIDE), despite the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), still enables Russian players to individually enter international tournaments around the world, provided they do it under FIDE flag — a compromise which probably averted a mass exodus of Russian chess pros to other federations. When asked to guess when, and if, peace and brotherhood would prevail over base instincts, Filatov replied: “Everyone has to do their job — we do ours. Our task is first to enter into the Asian family. Then we’ll raise the question of how to fully participate in competitions with our coat of arms, our anthem and our flag. This is the path we are on. For now, the main issue, our goal, is that there should be no discrimination against children, veterans and disabled players. Next, we’ll take care of the national team. We’ll get everything back, we will fly our flag”.