Monday, January 2, 2023

A Night at the Movies

Although scheduled and rescheduled several times, the “Жизнь и шахматы“ (“Life and Chess”) creative evening of 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov sold out Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at Film Club Museum “Eldar” in Moscow, Russia. (The date is likely to be reliable, but who knows? No matter when and no matter where, it happened). In the night of truth Karpov was expected to say all the things he never said before, living through an epoch in which he was doomed, even despite himself, to be a Soviet hero in the holy cold war against the Western anti-hero (Bobby Fischer) as well as against the half-fifth column of middle-aged and young Western sympathisers (Viktor Lvovich Kortschnoi and Garry Kimovich Kasparov). But no, no untold details from his rendezvouses with Fischer, neither fiction nor gossip about the not-only-hate-hate relations with the two fellow reprobates were brought out. Perhaps there are no secrets after all, or if there ever were any such, maybe Karpov will take his secrets to the grave. Hopefully as late as possible.

As expected Karpov’s creative evening has turned out to be a celebration of a life full of meaning. Photo: Sergey Vinogradov.

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