Speaking to RIA Novosti, three-time Russian Women’s Chess Champion Aleksandra Yuryevna Goryachkina said that a dialogue with the Chess Federation of Russia is ongoing, and that, hopefully, it will bring her fulfillment and joy.
While tens of top Russian Grandmasters are jumping off ship into the lifeboats of richer countries and federations, she decided to be faithful, but not to a captain, Oh Captain! My Captain! She, too, is faithful to the snow in Polar Urals. When asked if she had ever been offered a new nationality, she replied: “Well, I prefer not to talk about what didn’t happen — but if it had to happen, I’d think about it, depending on what kind of proposal they make [laughs]”.
In spite of the announcements of the Executive Director of the Chess Federation of Russia, Goryachkina has not yet decided if she wants to play the Superfinal of the Russian Chess Championship. She would like to rest now. No, she would not like it. “I already agreed to play the Women’s Grand Swiss in October”, she sighed. As for the Russian Supefinal, a word to the wise: “I guess my chances are still fifty-fifty”.
She also said she does not like being popular because she likes her personal private time more. She describes herself as a concrete and “cautious” woman, who does not feel at her ease in the limelight, but who knows that fame and glory are not given out for free — especially in an empire.
Though the winds of war had been blowing for over a year, Goryachkina still lives in a country where no one is at war with anyone. And thus she says that in general there’s no enmity between her herself and her fellow Ukrainian adversaries. “It’s all greatly exaggerated”, she says, answering a propagandistic question. “We also greet each other, but not in the presence of TV cameras, so that they don’t have any problems. I think that politics should be kept out of sport”. But is chess a sport?
Chinese chess Queen 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) was her “role model” when she was very young, but “between our successes there about seven years of difference, all in her favour”, she said smilingly.
As they say, slow and steady wins the race.
While tens of top Russian Grandmasters are jumping off ship into the lifeboats of richer countries and federations, she decided to be faithful, but not to a captain, Oh Captain! My Captain! She, too, is faithful to the snow in Polar Urals. When asked if she had ever been offered a new nationality, she replied: “Well, I prefer not to talk about what didn’t happen — but if it had to happen, I’d think about it, depending on what kind of proposal they make [laughs]”.
In spite of the announcements of the Executive Director of the Chess Federation of Russia, Goryachkina has not yet decided if she wants to play the Superfinal of the Russian Chess Championship. She would like to rest now. No, she would not like it. “I already agreed to play the Women’s Grand Swiss in October”, she sighed. As for the Russian Supefinal, a word to the wise: “I guess my chances are still fifty-fifty”.
She also said she does not like being popular because she likes her personal private time more. She describes herself as a concrete and “cautious” woman, who does not feel at her ease in the limelight, but who knows that fame and glory are not given out for free — especially in an empire.
Though the winds of war had been blowing for over a year, Goryachkina still lives in a country where no one is at war with anyone. And thus she says that in general there’s no enmity between her herself and her fellow Ukrainian adversaries. “It’s all greatly exaggerated”, she says, answering a propagandistic question. “We also greet each other, but not in the presence of TV cameras, so that they don’t have any problems. I think that politics should be kept out of sport”. But is chess a sport?
Chinese chess Queen 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) was her “role model” when she was very young, but “between our successes there about seven years of difference, all in her favour”, she said smilingly.
As they say, slow and steady wins the race.
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