Grand Finals 2021: competition kick-off

The Chess Federation of Russia with support from the Charitable Foundation of Elena and Gennady Timchenko announces a competition to host the Grand Finals of Russian chess championships for men and women as part of the Chess at Museums project. Entry forms can be submitted between 31 March and 10 May. The results will be announced on 24 May 2021.

The competition is open to provincial chess federations with experience in running competitions and the required technical resources, and willing to work in tandem with local museums. An important element of the Chess at Museums programme is socially significant side events such as master classes and simultaneous displays for children from chess schools and centres and competitions for chess veterans.

The Chess at Museums programme has been run by the Russian Chess Federation jointly with the Charitable Foundation of Elena and Gennady Timchenko since 2012, when a world championship match was hosted for the first time by the main museum of the Russian capital — the Tretyakov State Gallery.

The idea to hold chess tournaments at major cultural centres was made reality at the behest of Andrey Filatov and Gennady Timchenko. As early as 2013, the Chess at Museums programme went international with a Super Tournament, Alyokhin Memorial at the Louvre (Paris) and the Russian Museum (St Petersburg), and in the autumn of the same year, the Grand Finals of the Russian chess championship took place in Nizhny Novgorod, hosted by the Rukavishnikov house museum. The following years saw chess tournaments hosted at a variety of venues: the opening of the Premier League of the Russian championship in 2015 took place in a unique fortification of the late 19th C., Fort No 5 (Kaliningrad); the Grand Finals 2015 took place in the Khazine National Art Gallery of the Kazan kremlin; and two Mikhail Tal Memorials, 2016 and 2018, in the Museum of Russian Impressionism in Moscow. In 2016, the Grand Finals were hosted on a competitive basis by the Novosibirsk State Museum of Local History. In 2017, the titles of the nation’s best chess players were contested at the Museum of Political History of Russia in St Petersburg, and in 2018 the chess competitions were hosted by the town of Satka, Chelyabinsk Oblast, where Magnezit [Magnesite] DK [House of Culture (HOC)] held Gely Korzhev’s Path to the Painting exhibition as part of the tournament. In 2019, the competitions were hosted by the Udmurt Republic, with events taking place for the first time in two towns: Votkinsk (Tchaikovsky House Museum) and Izhevsk (House of Friendship of Peoples). In 2020, because of the coronavirus restrictions, the organizers decided to hold the tournament at the Botvinnik Central House of Chess Player in Moscow.