Ghosts of Mars

On Sunday, July 26, 2026, Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov officially withdrew from FIDE presidential race, apparently hurt by a behind-the-scenes smear campaign orchestrated by (not only Westerners) prominent detractors. He was dreaming the impossible dream, “but instead, they began to drag me into their petty squabbles. Why would I need that? I am a free man”, Ilyumzhinov said in an interview to Sport-Express. Yet he did not make a drama out of it. “His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama said that we need to build a temple within ourselves. I remember a conversation with Bobby Fischer in December 1995 at Budapest. I asked him, ‘Bobby, why didn’t you stay in chess?’. He replied, ‘I won everything, I beat everyone. I’m no longer interested’. Well, it is almost the same for me”, Ilyumzhinov said.
The withdrawal of Ilyumzhinov coincided with the announcement of Russian-born Kazakhstani billionaire Timur Ruslanovich Turlov’s candidacy for FIDE presidency.